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Bible Students' Library 
no. 13a 

Price, - 15 Cehts. 








THE LORD'S DAY 



THE TEST of^He AGES 






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2. Abiding- Sabbath 20 

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10. Scripture References 4 

14. The Sufferings of Christ. 4 
16. Christ in the Old Testam't 2 

24. Is Sunday the Sabbath ?... 1 

25. The Sanctuary and the 

Judgment 2 

26. The Sabbath in the New- 

Testament 2 

27. The Bible: Its Inspiration 

and Importance 2 

31. The Second Advent 4 

34. God's Memorial 2 

36. The Signs of the Times... 2 

42. Elihu on the Sabbath 2 

43. The Ten Commandments 

Not Revised 2 

46. Without Excuse 1 

47. Thoughts for the Candid. 1 

48. Which Day Do You Keep 

and W T hy? 1 

49. Can We Know? 1 

50. Is the End Near? 1 

51. Is Man Immortal? 1 

52. Why not found out Before 1 

53. Sabbath and the Law 20 

54. Nature and Obligation of 

the Sabbath 10 

55. Order of Events in the 

Judgment 5 

57. Lessons on the " Life of 

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58. Matthew 24 or the Second 

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60. Bible Lessons on " Proph- 

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61. Bible Lessons on "Sin and 

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63. The Sure Foundation and 

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64. Full Assurance of Faith... 2 

65. Great Day of the Lord 5 

67. Bible Election 3 

68. The Old Testament in the 

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69. "Jewish." Christians Are 

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70. Immortality of the Soul... 4 

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THE LORD'S DAY 

THE TEST OF THE AGES; 



OR THE 



SABBATH FROM EDEN TO EDEN 



. IN THE 



LIGHT OF THE DISPENSATIONS. 



^By MILTON C. WILCOX. 



(Illustrated.) 



"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it hoK 
" The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.'' 

" Blessed is the man . . . that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting 
it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." 



PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO. 

OAKLAND, CAL. 
NEW YORK CITY. KANSAS CITY, MO, 



V. 






Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1895, by 

pacific Press Publishing Co. 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 



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Pacific Press Publishing Co., 
Printers, Engravers, Electrotypers, Binders, 

OAKLAND. CAL. 



PREFATORY. 

That we are living in one of the most important ages of the 
world is recognized by all thinking men and women. Great 
revolutions are taking place, not only in the political world but 
in the religious world. Great questions are being discussed 
and decided, questions of eternal import. The prophet ex- 
presses it, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision; for 
the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Among 
the questions which are agitating the minds of men religiously, 
is that of the Sabbath. It has also entered the field of politics. 
Men and nations are deciding either for or against God. The 
agitation will not cease; the question of the Sabbath and its day 
cannot be put down. The questioners cannot, will not, be 
silenced. It is God's time, a "fullness of time," one of the 
crises of the race, one of the testing questions of this age as of 
other ages. This is declared and admitted by those who have 
ranged themselves on either side of this great question. 

Where lies the truth? It is not a question of majorities or 
minorities. It is not a question of great human names or great 
human authorities. It is a question of right and truth, of con- 
science and duty. On the one side is God, righteousness, and 
life; on the other is Satan, sin, and death. 

Reader, you must make a decision upon this question, whether 
you will consider it or not. You cannot be neutral. What will 
you take for your -guide, your standard ? The Sabbath is a 
Bible institution. Will you take the Bible, or the tradition of 
men ? It is the object of this little wofk to present before you, 
in the briefest, simplest way, a part of the Bible evidence con- 
cerning both sides of the Sabbath question. Will you not read 
it candidly, and weigh its testimony in the balances of God's 
sanctuary? That you may, and that you may arrive at the 
truth as it is in Christ Jesus, is the prayer of the writer. 

M. C. W. 

(Hi) 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Introduction - - * - - - - vi 

PART I.— THE PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION. 

Chapter I. — The Institution of the Sabbath - 9 

How made, 9; for whom made, 12; the purpose of the 
Sabbath, 12; the Sabbath a memorial, 13; the Maker of 
the Sabbath, 15; the Lord's day, 15. 

Chapter II. — During the Patriarchal Dispensation - 16 
The Book of Genesis, 16; in other nations, 18. 

Chapter III. — Sabbath Reform 21 

Out of Egypt, 21 ; the Sabbath restored, 22; a definite day, 23. 

PART II.— THE LEVITICAL DISPENSATION. 

Chapter I.— The Sabbath Affirmed - - 27 

The first covenant, 27; the giving of the law, 27; the 
fourth commandment, 28; made known the Sabbath, 30; 
a sign of redemption, 31. 

Chapter II. — During the Levitical Dispensation - 33 
The rival religion, sun worship, 33; character and forms of 
sun worship, 37; the sun-worship day, 37; sun worship 
forbidden, 38; apostasy to sun worship, 38; sun wor- 
ship is Sabbath breaking, 39. 

Chapter III.— Close of the Levitical Dispensation - 42 
Making void the law, 42; true Sabbath reform, 42. 

(iv) 



CONTEXTS. V 

Page. 
PART III.— THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 

Chapter I.— Christ and the Sabbath 45 

Type and antitype, 45; the typical service and institution, 
45; Christ and the law, 46; the teaching of Christ, 47; 
the death of Christ, 51; the new covenant, 53; the law 
of the new covenant, 54; written by the Spirit, 56; 
the New Testament Scriptures, 59; ceremonial Sab- 
baths, 61; perpetuity of Sabbath and law, 62; the royal 
law, 63. 

Chapter II. — The Gospel of Christ and the Sabbath 64 
What the law is to the sinner, 65; the One righteous, 65; 
His obedience ours by faith, 67; His life ours, 68; 
Christ in us, 69; Christ our example, 71. 

Chapter III.— Sunday in Apostolic Times 72 

Some first-day facts, 72; teaching of Paul, 75. 

Chapter IV. — The Change of the Sabbath 76 

History repeats itself, 76; the change of day, 77; the 
divine predictions, 79; confession of the criminal, 83. 

Chapter V. — The Testimony of Men 85 

True Protestantism, 85; early introduction of error, 87; 
how Sunday came to be observed by the church, 90; 
human testimony for the Sabbath, 95. 

Chapter VI. — The Close of the Christian Dispensa- 
tion - - ----__ - 99 

The condition of the Christian church, 99; the healing 
message, 100; how much the message implies, 101; the 
beast and his image, 103; the seal of God, 106; dis- 
tinguished by creative power, 108; the Sabbath His 
memorial, 108; a Sabbath blessing, 109; take thy foot 
from the Sabbath, in; the two classes, 113; the sad 
result, 116; the glorious outcome, 117; summary, 120; 
blessed boon of God, 121. 



THE LORD'S DAY. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The time of man's history upon this earth is naturally- 
divided into three great periods, ages, or dispensations, 
marked off by the different priesthoods and various forms 
of worship belonging to each priesthood. These periods 
are as follows : — 

i. The Patriarchal dispensation, during which the 
father, or patriarch, of a family or tribe was the priest of 
that family or tribe. This period began at Eden and 
ended with the giving of the law and the choosing of the 
tribe of Levi for the priesthood. 

2. The second period began at the time the Patriarchal 
dispensation ended (about 1491 b. c. , Usher's Chronol- 
ogy), and ended at the crucifixion. The priests were 
chosen from the tribe of Levi during this period, and 
hence it is. known as the Levitical dispensation. 

3. The Christian dispensation began at the crucifixion 
and closes with man's probation, the second coming of 
Christ, and the setting up of the everlasting kingdom of 
our Redeemer, in the capital of which the saints will 
begin their eternal reign with Christ. During this period 
our Lord Jesus Christ acts as priest in the sanctuary 
above, "which the Lord pitched, and not man." 1 

Upon this division into dispensations all Bible students 

, .. iHeb. 8:1, 2. 

(VI) 



INTRODUCTION. vii 

will agree. In fact, there is no room for controversy; 
the periods are too plainly marked. It will be further 
agreed that whatever forms of worship were instituted of 
God, whatever ordinances were binding, whatever gen- 
eral laws were in force, in the beginning of each dispen- 
sation, continued throughout that dispensation. For 
instance: It was the law in the beginning of the Leviti- 
cal dispensation that the priesthood should be vested in 
the tribe of Levi ; that is, none but those of that tribe 
could serve as priests, and care for the sacred vessels of 
the Lord. See Numbers 3. King Uzziah found to his 
sorrow how sacred was that law more than six hundred 
and fifty years after it was promulgated. 2 He was of the 
tribe of Judah; and when he attempted to burn incense 
as priest, he was stricken with leprosy. But when that 
dispensation ended, our Lord, who, according to the 
flesh, was of the same tribe as Uzziah, entered upon His 
priesthood lawfully. The law was binding throughout 
the Levitical dispensation only. ' ' For the priesthood 
being changed, there is made of necessity a change also 
of the law. ' ' 3 Many similar examples might be given. 

Some laws and institutions are of obligation throughout 
all these dispensations ; for example, that of marriage. 
The marriage institution began with the race. Its origin is 
given in the second chapter of Genesis. It was offeree 
throughout the Levitical dispensation, and was approved 
by Jesus on the basis of its primitive institution. 

During the Patriarchal dispensation, faith in God for 
forgiveness of sins was shown by the simple sacrifice of a 
lamb, or some other clean beast, manifesting faith in the 
Lamb of God, who w r as to die for the race. By this faith 

2 2 Chron. 26 : 16-20. 3 Heb. 7: 11-16. 



viil INTRODUCTION. 

Abel ' ' offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than 
Cain" 4 at the beginning of the dispensation, and Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob manifested their faith in the same 
way in its closing years. 5 

During the Levitical dispensation the offerings were 
the same, but the forms and ceremonies connected with 
these offerings were more elaborate and centralized. 

The same rule holds good in the Christian dispen- 
sation; the things ordained of God in its beginning con- 
tinue throughout the dispensation. While the worship 
was more simple, while it was not through a slain kid or 
lamb that faith would be shown, while the worshiper need 
not go to Jerusalem or any other place, yet God has 
given us the ordinances of baptism, humility, and com- 
munion, by which faith is manifested; and He would 
not have these simple yet impressive institutions of the 
Christian dispensation despised. 

Further, it will be readily conceded that whatever change 
took place in worship, in form, in ceremony, in ordinance, 
or in institution, this change must have occurred when 
the new dispensation was ushered in ; it would enter with 
the dispensation, as belonging to its institutions. 

With these preliminary remarks, in which all candid 
Bible students will agree, let us consider the Sabbath in 
each dispensation. Did it belong to one dispensation and 
not to the others ? Was it of more binding obligation in 
one dispensation than in another ? What change took 
place in the Sabbath in the change of dispensation ? 

4 Heb. ii : 4. 5 Gen. 22 : 13 ; 26 : 25 ; 35 : 7. 



PART I. 

THE PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION. 

CHAPTER I.— THE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 

§i. HOW MADE. 

At the close of creation week, our Lord instituted the 
Sabbath. This He did in three specific steps. One was 
not sufficient, or with Infinite Wisdom one would have 
sufficed. He did not leave the proportion of time nor 
the day to be inferred by human reasoning. But He 
instituted the Sabbath in such a way, and left so plain a 
record concerning it, that honest seekers after truth have 
no room for doubt. Nothing could be clearer than the 
record of the institution of the Sabbath at the close of the 
creation week. It reads as follows : — 

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 
host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work 
which He had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all 
His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh 
day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all 
His work which God created and made." 1 

i. God rested. Sabbath means rest. That made the 
last day of the septenary cycle, or week, God's Sabbath, 
or rest day. He did not rest because He was weary ; 
for "the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the 
ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary." 2 He 
rested in order to lay the first stone in the foundation of 

1 Gen. 2 : 1-3. 2 Isa. 40 : 28. 

(9) 



IO THE LORDS DAY 

the Sabbath institution. It was a necessary act. It 
could not be the Sabbath, or rest day, of the Lord until 
the Lord rested on that day. That day must be hence- 
forth the rest day, or Sabbath, of Jehovah. Nothing can 
change that fact. He rested on the seventh day; He 
rested on no other ; therefore, the seventh day and the 
seventh day only could be the Sabbath of the Lord. 
To illustrate : A man is born on April 9. That is his 
birthday. Nothing that he or all the nations of earth can 
do will ever change that fact. He could say he was born 
October 1, but it would not alter his true birthday. So 
with the Sabbath. On the seventh day God rested. 
That is a truth, a fact. God cannot change it (we speak 
with all reverence), for God cannot lie ; He cannot deny 
Himself. It would therefore ever remain true that the 
seventh day of the week, and the seventh day alone, is 
the Sabbath, the rest day, of the Lord. 

2. God blessed the seventh day, That made it God's 
blessed rest day. Had He only rested upon it, it would 
have been different than the other six days only in what 
was done on that day. Its character would have been 
the same. The six would have been days of labor, the 
seventh a day of rest, and nothing more. But God ex- 
alted the seventh above all others. He placed His blessing 
upon it. But that blessing was not upon the particular 
individual day upon which the Creator rested ; He blessed 
the seventh day of the weekly cycle in all time to come. 
He blessed it "because that in it He had rested." 
Therefore the seventh day will ever remain God's blessed 
rest day, unless the Lord remove His blessing from it; 
and in doing this His revelation of the removal of the 
blessing must, in justice, be as clear as the revelation of 
its bestowal. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. II 

3. But another act on the part of the Creator was 
necessary; He sanctified the day. That is, God "sepa- 
rated," "set apart," or "appointed" the day to a sacred, 
or holy, use. In order to do this He must give a com- 
mandment concerning it. The Hebrew word here ren- 
dered "sanctify is kadask. It is defined by Young "to 
separate, to set apart." It is also translated "ap- 
pointed," margin, "sanctified," in Josh. 20:7. The 
cities there appointed were set apart by commandments, 
or laws, concerning them. 3 The word is used in the same 
sense in Joel 2:15, "Sanctify a fast." In 2 Kings 10: 20, 
the Hebrew word is translated "proclaim," — "Pro- 
claim a solemn assembly for Baal." In all these in- 
stances of the use of the word, it either has the force of a 
law or necessarily implies one. This may be seen from 
Exodus 19. God commanded Moses, in words both 
solemn and emphatic, 4 to "set bounds" about the mount. 
In speaking of this, Moses says unto the Lord, "Thou 
chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and 
sanctify it." 5 The mount was thus separated from the 
common ground by the command of the Lord. The pres- 
ence of the living God sanctified the mount, or made it 
holy, 6 and the command to the people to so regard it was 
based upon that fact. 7 So, also, it was God's presence 
which made holy ground to both Moses 8 and Joshua, 9 and 
the command to these servants of the Lord to remove their 
shoes and reverence the place was based upon the fact of 
God's presence. And this is just what the blessing of 
Gen. 2 : 3 meant concerning the seventh day of the 
weekly cycle for coming time; God sanctified it by plac- 

3 See Numbers 35. 4 Verses 12, 13. 5 Verse 23. 6 Verse 11. T Verses 12, 13. 
8 Ex. 3:2-6. 9 Josh. 5: 13-15. 



12 THE LORDS DAY 

ing within it, in a special sense, His own presence, and 
upon it His own blessing, and so separated it from com- 
mon days, and appointed it to a sacred use. 

§2. FOR WHOM WAS THE SABBATH MADE? 

For whose benefit and instruction was all this? Not 
the Lord's, certainly. The counsels of His will concern- 
ing Himself rest with Him alone. "The Sabbath," says 
our Saviour, "was made for man." 1 Therefore it was 
for man that the rest took place, that the blessing was 
placed upon it, that it was sanctified, or appointed to be 
kept holy. And this was not for one man or for one 
nation of mankind; it was for all men. It was given to 
Adam, the father of all the race. It was to be as univer- 
sal as another institution coeval with it, namely, that of 
marriage. "The Sabbath was made for man;" that is, 
the whole race of mankind. "The woman [was created] 
for the man," 2 not to misuse at his pleasure, but for 
honorable marriage and fellowship. Therefore the Sab- 
bath is not Jewish, sectional, or national, for (i) it was 
given to the whole race, and (2) it was made for the race 
2,500 years before a jew existed. 

$3: THE PURPOSE OF THE SABBATH. 

The Sabbath was given to man for the purpose of ever 
keeping before him the one true God. Man was created 
with a religious and social nature. It ever was and is 
his duty to "worship Him that made heaven, and earth, 
and the sea, and the fountains of waters;" 8 neither w r as it 
' 'good for man to be alone. ' ' In order that the proper 
worship of his Maker be not neglected, man must have 
definite times when he would meet before God specifically 
for that purpose. Therefore it was not only fitting that 

1 Mark 2: 27. 2 i €01,11:9. 3 Rev. 14:7. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 1 3 

man should regularly worship God each day, but it was 
necessary and fitting that a day should be set apart for 
that purpose, especially devoted to God. Just what 
proportion of time man should consecrate to this purpose, 
unaided human wisdom could not tell. Left to itself, 
in infidel France it selected one-tenth. But the folly of 
that was soon manifest. Divine Wisdom alone could tell 
just what proportion of time ought to be set apart for the 
worship of God, and He chose one-seventh part of time. 
But this was not enough. 

Men are social beings. God designed that they should 
worship together. Therefore, to avoid confusion, there 
must be a definite day for this purpose. Were it pro- 
portion of time alone, one might choose one day, an- 
other choose another day, and so on till all were days of 
labor, all days of worship, and the utmost confusion 
would prevail. God, however, "is not the author of 
confusion, M4 and He foresaw all of this. He, therefore, 
appointed a definite day, that day around which clus- 
tered the evidences of His exceeding wisdom, His mighty 
power, and His wondrous love, namely, the seventh day 
of the septenary, or weekly cycle, the day which had 
marked the close of His bountiful provisions for man's 
necessities and happiness, the day on which, as He con- 
templated His work for man, He "was refreshed, " 
pleased, or satisfied. 

U- THE SABBATH A MEMORIAL. 

The above, reader, is not mere theory. The psalmist 
says that God "hath made His wonderful works to be 
remembered." 1 And the Sabbath is the memorial of 
God's works. For this reason the Sabbath is said to be 

4 1 Cor. 14:33. 5 Ex. 31:17. iPs. 111:4. 



14 THE LORDS DAY 

a sign between God and His people, that they might 
know that He is the Lord. "It is a sign between Me 
and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He 
rested, and was refreshed." 2 The law of the Sabbath 
expresses the same great truth, — that the Sabbath is a 
memorial of the great Creator, that which points out the 
only true God: — 

"Remember the Sabbath [rest] day, to keep it holy. Six 
days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day 
is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any 
work; . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and 
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh 
day; wherefore [for which reason] the Lord blessed the Sab- 
bath day [the rest day], and hallowed it." 3 

Just as often as the Sabbath of the Lord came to 
Adam and his posterity, and they remembered it to keep 
it holy, just so often would the true God, the One who 
gave them all things, be ever brought before them. 
And if they remembered the Sabbath day at all, they re- 
membered it every day, for the very manner of counting 
the days brought ever before them the remembrance of 
the Sabbath. Their days, with the exception of the 
seventh, were not named; the first day was "One into the 
Sabbath," or "One proceeding on to the Sabbath," 
"Two proceeding on to the Sabbath," and so on to the 
sixth day, which was called "Eve of the Sabbath." 4 
Every day brought the Sabbath before them, and, with 
the Sabbath, the Lord of the Sabbath, the Creator of the 
heavens and the earth. Therefore, just as long as the 
Sabbath was hallowed, just so long the true God could 

2 Eze. 20:20; Ex.31: 17. s Ex. 20:8-11. 

4 Chart of the Week, by M. Wm. Mead Jones, D. D., London, Eng. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 15 

not have been forgotten by His people, and idolatry was 
impossible. 

§5. WHO WAS THE MAKER OF THE SABBATH? 

It was the Creator, for the One who wrought, or 
created, the active agent in the work, w r as the One who 
rested. This is self-evident; for he could not be said to 
rest who had not before worked. Rest implies work, or 
labor performed. The following scriptures will be suffi- 
cient on this point: — 

"But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
are all things, and we by Him." 1 

"For by Him [Christ] were all things created, that are in 
heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether 
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all 
things were created by Him, and for Him; and He is before all 
things, and by Him all things consist [are upheld]." 2 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made 
by Him [the Word] ; and without Him was not anything made 
that was made." 3 

§6. THE LORD'S DAY. 

These scriptures are clear and positive that the Creator 
of the heaven and the earth was the Son of God, our 
Lord Jesus Christ. Of course there was perfect union 
with the Father. It may be said that the Father is 
Creator through the Son, and it is true that the Son is 
Creator likewise; "that all men should honor the Son, 
even as they honor the Father. ' ' And this makes plain 
the words of our Lord, ' ' Therefore the Son of man is 
Lord also of the Sabbath day."* Therefore the Sab- 
bath "is the Sabbath of the Lord our God," both Father 
and Son. The Father through the Son can rightly call 

iiCor. 8;6. 2 Col. 1 ; 16, 17. s joiin 1 : r-3. 4 Mark 2: 28, 



1 6 THE LORD'S DAY 

it, "My holy day," 5 and inspiration through the prophet 
can call it "the Lord's day." 6 But all these titles, ac- 
cording to the Scriptures of truth, refer to only one 
and the same day of the week, namely, the seventh. 
The rest day of Gen. 2:1-3 and the Lord's day of 
Rev. 1 : 10 are, according to Holy Writ, identical. 

This was the Sabbath day in the beginning. It was 
instituted by three distinct steps on the part of the 
Creator, — it w r as made for man, it was a memorial of the 
creation, that which, if observed, would ever guard 
against idolatry by ever calling to remembrance the true 
God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. The 
Sabbath, therefore, was a necessary institution. It never 
would have been instituted if it had not been for man's 
good, for Divine Wisdom does no unnecessary acts, 
establishes no unnecessary things. The very manner 
of its institution, the resting, the blessing, the setting 
apart by law, were all necessary, or the Lord would not 
so have done. To say that they, or the Sabbath itself, 
are not necessary, is to charge God with folly. 

CHAPTER II.— DURING THE PATRIARCHAL DIS- 
PENSATION. 

§1. THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 

In the brief history of Genesis, little is said concerning 
the Sabbath, and some argue from this that it was not 
binding in the Patriarchal dispensation. But Genesis is 
a history of 2,500 years; it is not a book of laws. It 
does not by formal precept prohibit idolatry, adultery, 
murder, and other sins; yet these were sins, and the 
Lord held the antediluvian and postdiluvian worlds re- 

5 Isa. 58 : 13. 6 Rev. i : io« 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 17 

sponsible therefor. Gen. 4:8-15 shows that Cain was 
guilty of great sin when he slew Abel; chapter 6: 5 con- 
demns as wicked the very thoughts of the antediluvians ; 
Ham broke the fifth commandment, as shown by chapter 
9: 22; Lot's "righteous soul" was "vexed," 2 Peter 2: 7, 8 
tells us, with the "unlawful deeds" of the wicked; see 
Gen. 35:2 for the transgression of the second com- 
mandment, Gen. 39:7-9 for the seventh, Ex. 16:27, 
28 for the fourth, and Gen. 26: 5 for the observance of 
them all. Many other instances might be given showing 
that all God's law was binding during the Patriarchal 
dispensation. The book of Genesis aims only to give 
the origin of the world and race, the history of the fall, 
the account of the Deluge and its cause, and God's prov- 
idential dealings with that line of men through which 
Christ, as concerning the flesh, came. 

But during this period of time there are allusions to 
the Sabbath in both sacred and profane records. It was 
"at the end of days," doubtless the Sabbath, the only 
appointed period of days of which we have a record to 
this time, that Cain and Abel came before God to wor- 
ship and present their offerings. 1 In later times increased 
offerings were made on the Sabbath day. 2 Noah num- 
bered by weeks, the only origin of which was the institu- 
tion of the Sabbath. 3 Noah was righteous, and kept 
God's laws. 4 He therefore kept God's commandments, 
all of which are "righteousness," "everlasting righteous- 
ness." Abraham was righteous, and, says the Lord, 
"obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My command- 
ments, My statutes, and My laws." 6 These men must, 
therefore, have kept the Sabbath which was commanded 

1 Gen. 4:3,4, margin. 2 Num. 28 : 9, 10. 8 Gen. 8 : 10, 12. 4 Gen. 6:9; 7:1. 
5 Ps. 119 : 172, 6 Gen. 26 : 5. 



1 8 THE LORD'S DAY 

of God. This conclusion cannot be avoided. Enoch, 
Noah, Abraham, and all the righteous men of the Patri- 
archal dispensation, kept the Sabbath of the Lord, for 
they kept the commandments of God, and the Sabbath 
stood forth in that dispensation preeminent in this respect. 
Nothing could be clearer. 7 If the absence of mention of 
the Sabbath during the Patriarchal dispensation is proof 
that it was not then observed, the absence of its mention 
for a period of six hundred years after Israel entered 
Canaan would prove that that nation did not observe it. 
But this no one believes. The mention of such institu- 
tions in history is generally incidental. And thus it is 
with reference to the precepts of the Decalogue. If any 
one of them have the preeminence, that one is most cer- 
tainly the Sabbath. Its origin is expressly mentioned ; 
it was instituted before sin entered into the world, and 
was, therefore, not a type; and the reasons for its institu- 
tion were as universal as the race; it was set apart for 
man by the command of God. 

§2. IN OTHER NATIONS. 

The Edenic origin and universal obligation of the Sab- 
bath is shown in the ancient languages and records of 
other nations separate from the Jews, and who did not, 
nor would not, on account of prejudice, receive it from the 
Jews. In fact, it is proved by nations which for unknown 
centuries have ceased its observance and have been wor- 
shipers of idols. They still retain the term "Sabbath,' ' 
or its equivalent, as the name of the seventh day. 

7 Alexander Campbell says: "The religious observance of weeks, or Sabbaths, 
in commemoration of creation . . . was religiously observed to the giving 
of the law. . . . Thus the law of the Sabbath commences with the words, 
'Remember the Sabbath.' The righteous always remembered the weeks, and 
regarded the conclusion of the week as holy to the Lord. . . . We find 
Noah religiously counting his weeks even while incarcerated in the ark." — 
Christian System, iSjg, p. ijs. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 19 

China, for instance, a nation which has been separated 
from others for untold generations, and whose records are 
very ancient, has, in what is called the ' ' Book of Dia- 
grams," a remarkable passage, which one eminent 
scholar translates thus : — 

" On the seventh day the passages are closed." A pupil of 
the celebrated Dr. Morrison says, in respect of the expression 
in the same book, "The ancient kings ordered that on that day 
(the seventh) the gate of the great road should be shut, and 
traders not permitted to pass, nor the princes to go and examine 
the states. It is plainly to be seen that in the times of the 
ancient kings, on the day of the Sabbath, all classes kept at rest 
and observed it." 

The Assyrian tablets which have been unearthed in the 
few years past furnish some remarkable testimony. For 
instance, in the fifth tablet, from the library of King Assur- 
bani-pal, we have a brief account of creation, in which 
are the following words: — 

" On the seventh day he appointed a holy day, 
And to cease from all business He commanded." 

Now the date of this tablet is about 700 b. c, but Mr. George 
Smith, of whose eminence as an Assyriologist it would be im- 
pertinence to speak, says: " The present copies of the Chaldean 
account of creation were written during the reign of Assur-bani- 
pal, b. c. 673-626. But they appear to be copies of much earlier 
accounts of creation; works the date of the composition of which 
was probably near b. c. 2000 [more than five hundred years be- 
fore Moses]. The legends, however, existed earlier than this, 
and were in form of oral teaching." — Trans. Soc. Bib. Archceol., 
vol. 4, p. 363. 

"In 1869," says Mr. Smith in his "Assyrian Discoveries" 
(p. 12), "I discovered among other things a curious religious 
calendar of the Assyrians, in which every month is divided into 
four weeks, and the seventh days, or Sabbaths, are marked out 
as days on which no work should be undertaken." 

Mr. Boscawen found the very name Sabbath, under the 
Accadian form "Sabbattu," meaning "a day of rest for the 
heart." Says Mr. H. Fox Talbot: "The fifth tablet is very 
important, because it clearly affirms, in my opinion, that the 
origin of the Sabbath was coeval with creation. For let it be 
noted that, these traces of the observance of the Sabbath being 
in existence so far back as the seventh century b. c, and the 



20 THE LORD S DAY 

documents from which the accounts of the creation and the 
institution of the day of rest have been translated dating, in the 
opinion of the most eminent authorities, from about 2000 b. c, 
we are brought back to the days of Noah, who died, according 
to the common computation, in 1922 b. c. Thus we are carried 
back by the records and traditions of some of the oldest nations 
to the time of the Deluge." 1 

The languages of other nations also prove the identity 
of the seventh day of ancient times with that of our 
present seventh day, or Saturday. The Rev. Wm. M. 
Jones, D. D., of London, England, a noted antiquarian, 
prepared, by great research, much expense, and inde- 
fatigable labor, "A Chart of the Week, Showing the 
Unchanged Order of the Days and the True Position of 
the Sabbath, as Proved by the Combined Testimony of 
Ancient and Modern Languages. ' ' This chart was fin- 
ished in 1886. It gives in nine columns (1) the name 
of the language, when spoken, read, or otherwise used, 
(2) the name of the week, the cluster, or cycle, of seven 
days, (3-9) the names of each of the days in the original 
language, the transliteration and the translation into 
English in one hundred and sixty ancient and modern 
languages and dialects; and one hundred and eight of 
these languages know the seventh day by the name 
"Sabbath," or its equivalent, while the entire number 
bear testimony to the identity and order of the days of 
the ancient and modern week. The testimony in Eu- 
ropean languages was compiled by the noted linguist, 
Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte. 

We know of no more striking testimony than the 
above, and yet it is just what the lover of God's word 

x The above quotations and facts are taken from "Our Rest Day," by the 
Rev. Thomas Hamilton, A. M., of Belfast, Ireland (pp. 43-52), being the essay 
to which was awarded the prize of ^Tioo by the "Sabbath Alliance of Scot- 
land," in 1883-4. They show that profane history and tradition, although 
independent of the Bible, confirm its truthfulness. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 21 

should expect. Here are nations remote from each other, 
nations always subject to change, nations tenacious of 
even unimportant customs which have not changed except 
as necessity compelled for thousands of years, nations 
ancient and modern, Japhetic, Semitic, Hamitic, and yet 
their testimony is equally positive that the order of the 
days of the week is the same now as from the begin- 
ning of nations; that the seventh-day Sabbath came from 
God, and was once recognized by the earlier nations as 
such, and that it is now recognized by the majority of the 
great nations by name. What does it mean ? — It means 
that the undesigned records and traditions of even idola- 
trous nations (thanks to the labors of a learned and faith- 
ful servant of God) confirm the word of God. It might 
be well here, in view of this impregnable wall of testi- 
mony, to ask, What becomes of that theory which claims 
that Sunday was the original seventh day to all the world 
save the Jews ? The theory has no foundation in reason, 
history, or Scripture. 2 



CHAPTER III.— SABBATH REFORM. 

| 1. OUT OF EGYPT. 

We now come to the close of the Patriarchal dispen- 
sation. Out of nearly two hundred and fifty years of 
bondage God delivers His people. Some of them had 
retained the knowledge of the true God; many had fallen 
into Egyptian idolatry, or sun worship. One of the first 
things done by Moses to bring them back to the true God 
was to impress upon them, even in their bondage, the 
obligation of the Sabbath. The revelation of the true 

2 See Eze. 13 14-13. 



12 THE LORD'S DAY 

God in connection with His promise of deliverance, pre- 
sented to the elders by Moses and Aaron, 1 would natu- 
rally, through gratitude, lead them to worship God as 
He had commanded. They believed, and true belief 
leads always to right works. Believing 'the true God, 
they would observe His holy day. That they did ob- 
serve the Sabbath seems evident from Pharaoh's charge: 
"Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let 2 the people 
from their works? get you unto your burdens. And 
Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are 
many, and ye make them rest from their burdens." 3 
But Pharaoh would not let Israel serve God in Egypt, 
and therefore the Lord demanded, ' ' Let My people go, 
that they may serve Me. ' ' * 

§ 2. THE SABBATH RESTORED-A TEST OF LOYALTY. 

It was proved, however, that Israel could not serve God 
in Egypt; therefore deliverance through God's mighty 
power became necessary; and the first test of their loy- 
alty to God, as well as the last in the Patriarchal dispen- 
sation, was observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. A 
record of this is found in Exodus 16. Will the reader 
note the following facts, so clearly brought to view in this 
chapter: — 

i. God gave the manna in the way He did to test His 
people: " Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; 
and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate 
every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk 
in My law, or no." 5 

2. That part of the law upon which He tested them 

1 Ex. 4: 29-31. 
2 The word " let " means in old English " to hinder." Boothroyd translates, 
" take off. " 3 Ex. 5:4, 5. 

4 Ex. 8:1; 10 : 3, compare with Ex. 19 : 5, 6 and Deut. 4 : 34-40. 4 Ex. 16:4. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 23 

was the holy Sabbath. "And it came to pass, that there 
went out some of the people on the seventh day for to 
gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto 
Moses, How long refuse ye to keep My commandments 
and My laws? see, for that the Lord hath given you the 
Sabbath." 5 

3. It was a day already known not as a sabbath, but 
as " 'the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. ' ' G This 
points directly back to the original institution of the Sab- 
bath, to God's rest and sanctification of the day. 

4. This Sabbath was also the seventh day. " Six days 
ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the 
Sabbath, in it there shall be none." 7 The same thing is 
also shown in verses 29 and 30: " See, for that the Lord 
hath given you the Sabbath, ... let no man go out 
of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on 
the seventh day. ' ' 

5. A double portion of manna fell on the sixth day, in 
order to provide for the Sabbath. This would keep over 
the Sabbath without spoiling. 8 

6. None fell on the Sabbath. 9 

7. That which was gathered on any other day than the 
sixth, would not keep over till the next day. 10 Melting 
under the heat of the sun, yet this wonderful bread could 
be boiled and baked for the Sabbath food. 

§3. A DEFINITE DAY. 

Here are all these facts (and more might be given) con- 
cerning the multifold miracle of the manna which contin- 
ued for ' 'forty years. ' ' * Men could not mistake the 
Sabbath then; God marked it too plainly to be misunder- 

Verses 27, 28. 6 Verse 23. 7 Verse 26. 8 Verses 23, 25. 9 Verses 26, 27. 
10 Verses 19, 20. l Verse 40= 




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THE TEST OF THE AGES. 25 

stood. In fact, no other day could have been kept with- 
out deprivation of food, inconvenience, and confusion. 
Had they kept Friday instead of the Sabbath, they would 
have had to fast two days, for they could have kept no 
food over from Thursday, as it would have bred worms 
and been unfit to eat; they would not, of course, if they 
kept Friday, gather on that day; therefore Friday would 
have proved a fast day, as would also the seventh day, as 
no manna fell on the seventh. Neither could they have 
kept Sunday without making it a fast day, as there would 
be no food on the day previous to keep over, nor would 
it keep over if it had fallen. There was but one Sabbath, 
and that was a definite day, the original seventh day of 
creation, in regular course, miracle-marked for forty years 
by the Almighty. Men might have lost the reckoning 
of the days of the week previous to this, although not 
supposable, but God did not; and He here fixed it beyond 
the shadow of a doubt. 

Certainly Exodus 16 shows positively that the seventh - 
day Sabbath was recognized in the very close of the Patri- 
archal dispensation. The Sabbath was not only recog- 
nzied, but a reform took place on that very thing. The 
morning of the race witnessed the solemn institution of 
the holy Sabbath; the close of the Patriarchal dispensa- 
tion shows God' s care for the Sabbath in the reformation 
concerning it. Exodus 16 proves the perpetuity, the 
integrity, the immutability, and the identity of the sev- 
enth-day Sabbath of creation. It is an unimpeachable 
witness to the truth of the record in Genesis, and God's 
sacred regard for His holy rest day; and at the same time 
it shows the fallacy of the lost-time and seventh-part-of- 
time theories. 



26 



THE LORDS DAY. 



This brings us to the close of the Patriarchal dispensa- 
tion and priesthood. Fifteen days later Israel came to 
Sinai, where the law was so soon to be given in such 
awful grandeur. Here God entered into covenant rela- 
tion with His people, 2 and soon after, the priesthood of 
Aaron of the tribe of Levi was instituted. 

2 Ex. 19:4-9; 24: 7, 8. 




y ^ j-f^ll hot ritr uv 



PART II. 

THE LEVITICAL DISPENSATION. 
CHAPTER I.— THE SABBATH AFFIRMED. 

§1. THE FIRST COVENANT. 

At Sinai began the Levitical dispensation. Here God 
gave His law anew — on tables of stone. Here was made 
the first or old covenant with Israel. Here began that 
centralized worship peculiar to this dispensation, with its 
special priesthood and ceremonial and national laws. 
Here we have the first organized body of God's people, 
' ■ the church in the wilderness. ' ' * Here we have erected 
the center of worship, the sanctuary. 2 Unto them was 
committed the precious truth of God for posterity, chief 
among which were the oracles of God, or those words 
which He spake with His own voice. 3 

§2. THE GIVING OF THE LAW. 

God chose to speak His law from Sinai's peak, amid 
the solitudes of earth. It was spoken on land not be- 
longing to the Hebrews, showing even in this that it was 
for the world. Jehovah did not trust prophet or priest to 
proclaim it; He uttered it with His own voice. 4 He did 
not proclaim it in stillness to the heart, but in trumpet 
tones, which shook the earth, amid such glory as the world 
had never seen nor will see till He who was on Sinai shall 
come again in His glory. This law was not written on 

1 Acts 7 : 38. 2 See Exodus 19-40; Heb. 9 : 1-8. 3 Rom. 9 : 4, 5; 3:1, 2; Ex. 
20:1-17. 4 Deut. 4:12, 13; Ex. 20:1-17. 5 Ex. 19:18: Heb. 12:26. 

(27) 



28 THE LORD'S DAY 

parchment or papyrus, but graven by God's finger on 
tables of enduring rock. 6 A costly receptacle — the ark 
of the testimony — was made for it, the cover of which was 
symbolic of God's throne. 7 Everything attending the 
giving of the law showed its exceeding and extraordinary 
importance, majesty, holiness, comprehensiveness, singu- 
larity, and obligation, high over all other laws. It was 
the reflect of God' s character, the expression of His right- 
eousness, 8 and is a complete compendium of all morality. 
After referring to the Decalogue, and in greater part re- 
peating it, forty years after God gave it, Moses thus de- 
clares : — 

' ' These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the 
mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the 
thick darkness, with a great voice, and He addedno more. And 
He wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto 
me." 9 

As God ' ' added no more, ' ' it must have been com- 
plete and perfect, and it is so declared to be. * ' The law 
of the Lord is perfect,, converting the soul. " 1(D It con- 
tains ' ' the whole duty of man. " n To add to or take 
from a perfect and complete law would make it incom- 
plete and therefore imperfect. 

I 3. THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 

In the very heart of this law, containing about one-third 
of its words, is the law of the Sabbath, the fourth com- 
mandment of the Decalogue : — 

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days 
shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is 
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any 
work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor 
thy maidservant, nor thy. cattle, nor thy stranger that is within 
thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; where- 
fore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. ,, l 

3 Ex. 31 : 18; 32: 16. 7 Ex. 25:21. 8 Ps. 119: 172; Isa. 51 : 6, 7. 9 Deut. 5:22. 
10 Ps. 19 : 7. n Eccl. 12 : 13. l Ex. 20:8-11. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 29 

Notice the following facts: — 

1. The very word — "remember" — with which the 
commandment begins, shows that the Sabbath is not a 
new institution, and indicates how carefully God would 
have the Sabbath regarded. 

2. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. God had 
already made it holy; man's duty was to keep holy what 
God had made holy. God made it holy at its institu- 
tion. 2 He alone can make anything holy. This He does 
by placing in it His own presence. He only can keep the 
Sabbath holy who is Himself holy, made so by the in- 
dwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ. A recognition of these 
facts will show the utter futility and assumption of all man- 
made or civil Sabbath laws. 

3. It is the same day of the weekly cycle as we have 
in Gen. 2:2, 3, based on the same facts, — the Creator's 
rest, blessing, and sanctification, — thus identifying it with 
the original Edenic Sabbath. 

4. It is a memorial of God's creative power, wisdom, 
and love. 

5. It points out the seventh day of the cycle as the 
Sabbath — the seventh day of the seven — the day on which 
God rested, which He blessed, which He set apart for 
man. 

6. There is not one hint of a seventh-part-of-time Sab- 
bath, or that the Sabbath was for the Jews. The com- 
mandment is addressed to the individual, not to a race or 
nation. 

Note again the position of the Sabbath commandment 
in the law. It is not at the beginning or at the close. 
Were it at the beginning, it might be declared to be nq 

2 Gen. 2 : 2, 3. 



30 THE LORDS DAY 

part of the law. Were it at the close, it might be declared 
to have been added. But divine wisdom placed it in the 
very heart of the moral law, so that three immutable pre- 
cepts guarding man's duty to God must be passed over, 
on the one hand, and six immutable precepts guarding 
man's duty to his fellow, crushed out, on the other hand, 
before the impregnable fortress of the Sabbath can be 
reached in order to attack it. But not one of these mas- 
sive walls which surround it can be successfully assaulted. 
The Sabbath law is a part of the Decalogue, and no soph- 
istry can evade it. 

§4 MADE KNOWN THE SABBATH. 

Says Nehemiah, in alluding to this fact: — 

"Thou earnest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with 
them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true 
laws, good statutes and commandments; and madest known 
unto them Thy holy Sabbath ; and commandedst them precepts, 
statutes, and laws by the hand of Moses Thy servant." x 

"And madest known unto them Thy holy Sabbath," 
does not mean that it was at Sinai that the Israelites first 
had a knowledge of the Sabbath, for they knew it at the 
least calculation more than two weeks previous to this 
in the wilderness, as has been before shown from Exodus 
1 6. " Madest known " means to have made acquainted 
with, to have revealed its true character. And how did 
God do this ?— He did it in two ways: — 

i. He spoke it in connection with nine other moral pre- 
cepts, and placed it right in the very heart of that law about 
which the generations to come would have no question. 
They could not say that the Sabbath was ceremonial or 
typical; God made it known to them, and to all who 
should come after them, that the Sabbath was just as 

1 Neh. 9 : 13, 14. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 31 

moral and unchangeable as any other precept of His law. 
It was founded on facts which concern the race, and was 
made a memorial of God's creative power. Fasten this 
fact, dear reader, in your memory forever, that you may 
remember that the holy Sabbath of the Lord is as moral, 
permanent, and obligatory as the other nine precepts 
with which it is associated. 

§5. A SIGN OF REDEMPTION. 

2. The Lord made known His Sabbath in a still fuller 
sense in the beginning of the Levitical dispensation. He 
revealed it not only as a memorial of His creative power, 
but as a sign of His mighty power to redeem. All 
through the word of God the deliverance of Israel from 
Egypt is presented as an evidence of God's redeeming 
love and power, typical of the greater redemption and 
deliverance of the whole Israel of God when Christ comes. 
How many times in history, in prophecy, and inspired 
song do we read of how God brought Israel out of Egypt 
" by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm;" l " in 
His love and in His pity He redeemed them;" 2 and He 
manifested His mighty power that His people might 
"know that the Lord [Jehovah] He is God; there is 
none else beside Him. ' ' 3 The very power of creation is 
manifest in the redemption, or salvation, of His people. 
* ' Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting 
salvation; . . . for thus saith the Lord that created 
the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and 
made it; He hath established it, He created it not in 
vain, He formed it to be inhabited; I am the Lord; and 
there is none else. ' ' 4 See other Scripture passages 

1 .Deut. 4:34; Ex. 15:11-13; Deut. 9:26, 29. 2 lsa..6si9. 3 Deut.4:35. 

4 Isa. 45: 17, 18. 



32 THE LORD'S DAY 

where creative, redeeming, and saving power are joined 

together in the -names by which God reveals Himself to 

His people. 5 Who cannot see, from the scriptures 

cited below, and many others, that the same power which 

created is the same power which redeems, sanctifies, and 

saves ? In fact, redemption, or regeneration, is creation. 

" For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works." 6 

' ' Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.' ' 
R. V., margin, " a new creation.' ' 7 

Therefore as the Sabbath is the memorial of God's 
creative power in the beginning, how fitting it is that it 
shall ever be a sign of the same power in the redemption 
and sanctification of man ! And this is what in the wis- 
dom of God the Sabbath is. Thus saith the Lord: "I 
gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and 
them, that they might know that I am the Lord that 
sanctify them; " 8 that His people might ever remember 
that God's creative power is pledged to make them holy 
and to save them. It is for this reason that the Lord not 
only gave the Sabbath as a memorial of His creative 
power, as spoken by His own voice, but He made it 
known as a sign of Israel's redemption from Egypt, typ- 
ical of the redemption of all the Israel of God from the 
bondage of sin and Satan. Thus we read: — 

1 - Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God 
hath commanded thee. . . . And remember that thou wast 
a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God 
brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a 
stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded 
thee to keep the Sabbath day." 9 

God redeemed His people from Egypt that they might 

be a holy people, like Himself. "Ye shall be holy; for 

5 Isa. 43 : 3, 14, 15 ; 44 : 24; 45: 15, 22; 49: 26. G Eph. 2:10. 7 2 Cor. 5 : 17. 
8 Eze. 20 : 12. 9 Deut. 5 : 12-15. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 33 

I the Lord your God am holy. ' ' 10 Therefore the Sab- 
bath, which was given of God primarily and forever to be 
a memorial of the mighty power of God in the creation 
of the heaven and the earth, a memorial of that same 
power which redeemed Israel from Egypt, typical of the 
greater deliverance from sin, was at the same time to be 
to them a continual sign that the same mighty power 
was pledged to their continual sanctification, as shown 
by Eze. 20 : 12, before quoted. Thus God made known 
His Sabbath, as He did Himself, — a memorial and sign 
of both Creator and Redeemer. 



CHAPTER II.— DURING THE LEVITICAL DISPENSA- 
TION. 

§1. THE RIVAL RELIGION-SUN WORSHIP. 

The great rival to the worship of God was idolatry, 
at the head of which stood sun worship. This was 
prominent in Egypt, where the children of Israel had been 
for over two centuries. The sun was worshiped under 
the names of Ra, Osiris, Apis, and other forms and 
names; in surrounding nations, as Baal, identical with the 
Roman Jupiter; Tammuz, identical with Apollo, the sun 
god of the Greeks; Ashtoreth or Astarte, and the asherim, 
or ' 'groves, ' ' represented the female principle of the sun. 
''The Romans, too, maintained the worship of the sun," 
says "McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia/' "after He- 
liogabalus had introduced it and had built a temple to it. ' ' 
"The sun was worshiped among the Persians under the 
form of Mithras," says the "Schaff-Herzog Encyclope- 
dia," "which finally became the Sol Deus Invictus [the 
invincible sun god] throughout the West, especially 

10 Lev. 19 : 2. 



34 the lord's day 

through the Romans. " * It was introduced in Rome B. c. 

320. "The universality of this form of idolatry,' - says 

Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, ' 4s something remarkable. It 

seems to have prevailed everywhere. ' ' 2 

Of the Phoenicians, with whom the children of Israel 

were in close contact, we read: — 

The central point in religion, and the starting point in all 
Phoenician mythology, was the worship of the sun, who has 
either the moon or (as the sun god is also the heaven god) 
the earth for wife. . . . In other places we find as spouse 
of the highest god the moon goddess Astarte with the cow's 
horns, who in Tyre was worshiped under the symbol of a star 
as queen of heaven. With her worship, as with that of Baaltis, 
were associated wild orgies, and traces of the like are not 
lacking even at Carthage [Aug., Civ. Dei. ii. 4], where theology 
has given a more earnest and gloomy character to the goddess. 
. . . On account of his regular daily course the sun is viewed 
as the god who works and reveals himself in the world, as son 
of the god who is above the world, and as protector of civil 
order. But, again, as the sun engenders the fruitfulness of the 
earth, he becomes the object of a sensual nature worship, one 
feature of which is that men and women interchange garments. 
A chief feast 3 to his honor in Tyre was the ' 'awaking of Hera- 
cles" in the month Peritius [February and. March], a festival of 
the returning power of the sun in spring. 4 

Of the bull (worshiped in Egypt under the name of 

Apis) the same authority says: — 

The bull is a well-known symbol of the sun, and it occurs 
in the bull-slaying group representing the Persian sun god, 
Mithras. 5 

Of Baal, the principal god whose worship led Israel 

astray, the same high authority says: — 

As the sun god he is conceived as the male principle of life 
and production in nature, and thus in some forms of his wor- 
ship is the patron of the grossest sensuality, and even of sys- 
tematic prostitution. An example of this is found in the worship 

1 Art. Sun. 2 Old Testament Student, January, 1886. 

3 Similar to the festival of the Saxon Goddess Eostre, from which comes our 
Easter. 

4 "Encyclopedia Britannica," art. Phcencia, vol. 18, pp. 802, 803. 

5 Id, Vol. 15, p. 777, art. Medea. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 35 

of Baal-Peor [Numbers 25], and in general in the Canaanitish 
high places, where Baal, the male principle, was worshiped in 
association with the unchaste goddess Ashera, the female prin- 
ciple of nature. The frequent references to this form of reli- 
gion in the Old Testament are obscured in the English version 
by the rendering 'grove' for the word 'Ashera/ which some- 
times denotes the goddess, sometimes the tree or post which 
was her symbol. Baal himself was represented on the high 
places not by an image, but by obelisks or pillars [Macceboth, 
E. V. wrongly "images"], sometimes called chammanim, or sun 
pillars, a name which is to be compared with the title Baal- 
chammam, frequently given to the god on Phoenician inscrip- 
tions." 6 

Of Baalbec (a cut of the ruins of which we give) the 
same work says: — 

It is almost certain that the Greek Heliopolis [the city of the 
sun] was intended to be a translation of the name [Baal-bec]. 7 

It is evident that in early Christian centuries Heliopolis was 
one of the most flourishing cities of pagan worship, and the 
Christian writers draw strange pictures of the morality of the 
place. 8 

At Baalbec was a magnificent temple dedicated to the 
worship of the sun. In brief, sun worship prevailed 
everywhere, and in some form or other permeated all 
heathen worship. Our combination picture 9 gives us 
some of the places and symbols under which this gross 
nature worship was carried on. In the center we have 
the Temple of the Sun, which formerly existed at Rome, 
others of which existed in various lands. Ra, Osiris, 
and Apis are different names and manifestations of the 
same worship. Tammuz was another name of the sun 
answering to the Greek Apollo. The ruins of the mag- 
nificent sun temple at Baalbec form another part of our 
picture. After this the city was named Baalbec, Heli- 
opolis, or City of the Sun. The insect is the sacred 
beetle (scarabaeus) of the Egyptians. 

6 Vol. 3, p. 175, art. Baal. ' Id., p. 176. 8 Id. 9 See next page. 



THE TEST OE THE AGES. 37 

12. CHARACTER AND FORMS OF SUN WORSHIP. 

The worship of the sun was the most abominable and 
degrading of all idolatrous worship. It was often charac- 
terized by human sacrifices, by cutting and scourging, 
and by licentiousness which cannot be described. 

Mosheim says of the heathen worship : — 

Their festivals and other solemn days were polluted by a 
licentious indulgence in every species of libidinous excess; and 
on these occasions they were not prohibited even from making 
the sacred mansions of their gods the scenes of vile and beastly 
gratification. 1 

The time of sun worship was most frequently in the 
morning, saluting the sun with bowed head and standing 
posture at its rising, with the face toward the east, the 
licentious rites and orgies coming in connection with the 
festivals, later in the day. 

§3. THE SUN-WORSHIP DAY. 

The * 'synagogue of Satan, " — the heathen world, — had 
also its "times," and chief among them was the times 
connected with the chiefest worship, that of the sun. 
Among these were various festivals in spring and autumn, 
as well as the weekly festival of the sun, the first day oi 
the week, which the North British Review styles "the 
wild solar holiday of all pagan times. ' ' 2 

Sunday, so called because this day was anciently dedicated 
to the sun, or to its worship. 3 

Sunday, so called because it was dedicated to the worship oi 
the sun. 4 

Sunday [Dies Sotis of the Roman calendar, "day of the sun," 
because dedicated to the sun], the first day of the week. 5 

Jennings, in writing of the gentile nations at the time 

of the Exodus, thus speaks of Sunday: — 

1 Commentaries, Introduction, chap. 1, sec. 11. , edited by Murdock. 

2 Vol. 18, p. 409. 3 "Webster's International Dictionary." 

4 "McClintock and Strong's Biblical and Theological Ency.," art. Sunday. 

5 "Schaff-Herzog Ency.," art. Sunday, See other lexicons. 



38 the lord's day 

The day which the heathens in general consecrated to the 
worship and honor of their chief god, the sun, which, according 
to our computation, was the first day of the week. 6 

§4. SUN WORSHIP FORBIDDEN. 

The worship of the sun, as well as all other heathen 
worship, was prohibited by the Lord under sentence of 
death. 7 Neither were His people to observe the "times" 
of the heathen, 8 but on the other hand they should observe 
the Sabbath. 9 The priests were not to shave their beards, 
or to make bald the crown of the head, as did the heathen 
sun priests. 10 They were not to do penance by cutting 
themselves, as did the priests of the sun, nor prostitute 
their daughters, as did the devotees of this abominable 
idolatry. 11 The door of God's sanctuary was placed to- 
ward the east, the center of the worship [God's presence 
— the shekinah] in the west end, 12 so that the worshiper at 
the front would worship God with. /ace to the west, so 
that he might not even seem to favor sun worship or to 
hold aught in common with the sun worshiper. To wor- 
ship the sun, therefore, meant to turn one's back upon 
the Lord. 13 Thus by precept and object lesson God 
showed his abhorrence of this most abominable idolatry. 

§ 5. APOSTASY TO SUN WORSHIP. 

The history of God' s professed people during this dis- 
pensation is sad indeed. God placed them as a beacon 
light in the surrounding darkness, priests of the true 
God, the great Jehovah, to the surrounding nations, that 
they might so show forth his praises that the longing 
souls in darkness might find light, and the wicked be left 
without excuse. 1 But Israel neglected their opportunity, 

6 "Antiquities," book 3, chap. 3. 7 Deut. 4 : 19; 13:6-11; 18:9-14. 

8 Lev. 19 : 26; Deut. 18 : 10, n. 9 Lev. 19 : 30. 10 Lev. 21 : 5. 

11 Lev. 19 : 28, 29, compare with 1 Kings 18 : 26-29. 12 See Ex. 26 : 18, 20, 22, 36. 

13 Eze. 8 : 16. * See Ex. 19 : 5, 6 ; Deut. 4 : 5, 8. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 39 

and went after the idols of the heathen around them. 
They forsook the pure Fountain of Life, and drank of 
the polluted waters of idolatry. This was especially man- 
ifest in sun worship. The first departure from God is 
noted as taking place within the short space of forty days 
after God spake His law, showing how early and how 
easily error may be introduced, especially when in har- 
mony with the natural heart. Israel made a god of gold, 
a representation of the Egyptian sun god, Apis, whose 
symbol was a bull; and Aaron proclaimed, "These be 
thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land 
of Egypt." And then they evidently proclaimed the 
day dedicated to the sun god, calling it the Lord's, in the 
following words: "To-morrow is a feast to the Lord. 
And they rose up early on the morrow [characteristic of 
sun worshipers, who adored the sun at its rising], and 
offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and 
the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to 
play [according to heathen custom, see Mosheim's testi- 
mony, quoted in this chapter]." 2 Thus they "corrupted 
themselves. ' ' 

The next recorded backsliding is in Numbers 25, in the 
worship of the sun god Baal; and there also is given us 
a fearful picture of its shameless licentiousness. 

I 6. SUN WORSHIP IS SABBATH BREAKING. 

Another fact which we wish to note is that a conse- 
quence of sun worship was the violation of the Sabbath 
of the Lord, the sign of the true God. In the eighth 
chapter of Ezekiel we have the record of a vision in 
which the prophet was shown the idolatry of Israel. The 
"image of jealousy" was bad; the worship of "creeping 

2 Ex. 32 : 1-7. 



40 THE LORDS DAY 

things and abominable beasts" was worse; the "weeping" 
of the women ' 'for Tammuz, ' ■ the Syrian sun god, was 
still worse; but the most abominable of all was the "five 
and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of 
the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they wor- 
shiped the sun toward the east." 1 Here is the testimony 
of the prophet with reference to the consequence of this 
idolatry: — 

{ 'Because they despised My judgments, and walked not in 
My statutes, but polluted My Sabbaths; for their hearts went 
after their idols. . . . 

"But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye 
not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judg- 
ments, nor defile yourselves with their idols. I am the Lord 
your God; walk in My statutes, and keep My judgments, and 
do them ; and hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign be- 
tween Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your 
God. . . . Because they had not executed My judgments, 
but had despised My statutes, and had polluted My Sabbaths ', 
and their eyes were after their fathers'* idols."* 

Here is an account of the idolatry of Manasseh : — 

"Manasseh . . . did that which was evil in the sight of the 
Lord, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast 
out before the children of Israel. For he built up again the high 
places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared 
up altars for Baal, and made a grove [Asherah 3 ], as did Ahab 
king of Israel; and worshiped all the host of heaven, and 
served them. . . . And he made his son pass through the 
fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt 
with familiar spirits and wizards; he wrought much wickedness 
in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. And he set 
a graven image of the grove [Asherah] that he had made in 
the house, of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon 
his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen 
out of all tribes of Israel, will I put My name forever." 4 

The idolatry of Ahab, above mentioned, who was the 
wickedest king of Judah till his time, was Baal or sun 
worship. 5 As the result of all this God was dishonored, 

a See Eze. 8:5-16. 2 See Eze. 20 : 12-24. 

3 Representing the female principle of sun worship, see cut, p. 89. 

4 2 Kings 21 : i-6, & See 1 Kings 16 : 31-33; 18 : 17-29. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 41 

his temple polluted, his people debased, the Sabbath 
violated, and his servants who kept the Sabbath perse- 
cuted and killed by Jezebel and the later kings of Judah. 
Jeremiah gave faithful warning against this sun (Baal) 
worship, and told the people that if they would observe 
God's Sabbath, God would be merciful, and Jerusalem 
would "remain forever." 6 But Israel would not honor 
the Lord nor His Sabbath. The very priests of the Lord 
led in this work of turning from the holy Lord's day to 
the day of the sun : — 

' 'Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned Mine 
holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and 
profane, neither have they shoived differe7ice between the un- 
clean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, 
and I am profaned among them." 7 

The transgression and its result is thus stated: — 

* 'Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, trans- 
gressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; 
and polluted the house of the Lord which He had hallowed in 
Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by 
His messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because He had 
compassion on His people, and on his dwelling place. But 
they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, 
and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose 
against His people, till there was no remedy." 8 

After this came a superficial, and, therefore, partial ref- 
ormation under Nehemiah. 9 

These things are written for later days. 10 We will find 
the history repeated in the Christian dispensation. 

6 See Jer. 2:8; 7:9; 11 : 13, 17; 12 : 16; 19 : 5; 23 : 13, 27; 17 : 21-27. 
7 Eze. 22 : 26. 
8 2 Chron. 36; 14-16. See also verses 17-21, "until the land had enjoyed her 
sabbaths." 

9 Neh. 13 : 15-22. 10 1 Cor. 10 : 11. 



42 THE LORDS DAY 

CHAPTER III.— THE CLOSE OF THE LEVITICAL 
DISPENSATION. 

gi. MAKING VOID THE LAW. 

We now come to the close of the Levitical dispensa- 
tion. Pharisaism was dominant. Outward forms were 
multiplied, trifling matters magnified, and burdensome 
traditions considered sanctified, by the leading sect of the 
Jewish religion, till God's primal laws were perverted and 
had become grievous. In fact, in some cases God' s law was 
made void by the Rabbinical traditions. By saying that 
his whole property was a gift to God, while retaining all 
for his own use, the avaricious son refused to support 
father and mother. Thus a tradition of the Jews made 
void the fifth commandment. Our Lord declared to 
them : ' ' Thus have ye made the commandment of God 
of none effect by your tradition. ■ ' x 

The true design of the Sabbath law had also been 
buried under this heap of human traditions and Rabbin- 
ical notions. According to Rabbinical law, rubbing 
out wheat in the hands was a mode of threshing, and, 
therefore, unlawful. 2 Healing the sick was also forbidden 
labor; and, therefore, Christ was accused of Sabbath 
breaking because of these works of mercy and love ; 3 and 
for thus doing they sought to put Him to death. 4 But 
the charge was unfounded; Jesus did not break the Sab- 
bath. What He did do was to restore it to its rightful 
place as a day of blessing, ' ' a delight, the holy of the 
Lord, honorable." 5 

I 2. TRUE SABBATH REFORM. 

The very best commentary on the Sabbath law was 

1 See Matt. 15 : 3-6; Mark 7 : 7-13. 2 Matt. 12 : 1, 2. 
3 Luke 13 : 14; John 9 : 13, 16. 4 John 5 : 16. 5 Isa. 58: 13. 



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44 TH E LORDS DAY. 

the practice of our Lord Jesus Christ. How did He re- 
gard the day? We follow Him to the house of God — it 
was His custom to go there. 1 The day was spent by 
Him in "doing good," in attendance on public worship, 
in teaching the people, in healing the body-sick and 
soul-sick, and doubtless also in prayer to God. 2 But in 
all this the Son of God as well as the Son of man fulfilled, 
exemplified, and honored the law of the Sabbath. Hear 
His answer to those who charged Him with transgress- 
ing the Sabbath law: — 

"And He said unto them, What man shall there be among 
you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the 
Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out ? How 
much then is a man better than a sheep ? Wherefore it is law- 
ful to do well on the Sabbath days." 3 

"Law/i^/" means "according to law." Therefore 
what our Saviour did was not a transgression of the 
fourth commandment, but the highest interpretation of 
what the commandment meant. His action was accord- 
ing to the Sabbath law. It expressed in act just what 
the law said in words. "The Sabbath was made for 
man," 4 for man's highest good, and that good can only 
be realized by observing it according to its law, the fourth 
commandment. It was in accordance with this law that 
it was kept by the Son of man; and it was in perfect 
accord with this law that it was made for man, to be a 
blessing spiritually and otherwise. The Levitical dispen- 
sation, therefore, closes in a reform on the Sabbath of the 
Lord, by which the Sabbath is brought back to its primi- 
tive design, and interpreted by its Author according to 
the Sabbath law as spoken from Sinai. In this way it 
again became a test of loyalty to God. 

1 Luke 4:16. 2 Luke 4 : 16-40, and elsewhere. s Matt, 12 ; 11, 12. 4 Mark 2 127. 



PART III. 

THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 
CHAPTER I.— CHRIST AND THE SABBATH. 

gl- TYPE AND ANTITYPE. 

The mission of Christ was not simply to restore the 
truth of God held by the Jews to its primitive place, and 
to show the spirit of the law of God as well as its letter, 
but Christ was manifested as the antitype, the substance 
and the fullness of the types and shadows of the past dis- 
pensations. They were fulfilled in Him and His work. 
His teachings led up to that time when all sacrifices 
would culminate in the great Sacrifice for the sins of 
man, when that covenant which had been made sure to 
Abraham by the promise and oath of God, 1 would be 
verified to the world by the death of the Son of God, the 
great Surety of the fulfillment of the promises of that 
covenant, because Heaven's greatest gift to man. So 
the prophet predicted that a part of the mission of the 
Messiah was to "confirm the covenant with many for one 
week." 2 This week was a prophetic week of years, be- 
ginning in A. D. 27, when Christ was manifested as the 
Messiah, and ending in A. D. 34, when the Jews were 
forever rejected as the special people of God. The con- 
firmation of the covenant took place at the death of 
Christ, anticipated by every sacrifice of faith from Abel 
down, and in a special manner in that "upper room," a 

1 Gen. 22 : 16-18. 2 Dan. 9 : 27. 



46 the lord's day 

few hours before the Crucifixion, by the emblems ot the 
broken body and shed blood of our Lord. 3 

12. THE TYPICAL SERVICE AND INSTITUTIONS. 

At this time ended the sacrifices, the offerings, the 
feasts, the new moons, the yearly and typical sabbaths. 
They then expired by limitation, just as the shadow ends 
when the substance is reached. Of the yearly feast days 
and sabbaths there were originally seven, as follows: (i) 
The Passover, or the fourteenth day of the first month; 
(2 and 3) the sixteenth and twenty-second days of the 
same month; (4) the fiftieth day from the Passover, or 
Pentecost; (5) the tenth day of the seventh month, or 
Day of Atonement; (6 and 7) the fifteenth and twenty- 
second days of the same month. These last three days 
were sabbaths, and are so called in the Scriptures where the 
record of them is given. 4 All these were feasts and sab- 
baths peculiar to the Levitical dispensation. They are 
called in Hosea 2:11 "her sabbaths," that is, Israel's 
sabbaths. But the Sacred Record is careful to distinguish 
between these yearly sabbaths and the "Sabbath of the 
Lord," which is made of primary obligation. All these 
days were to be observed ' 'besides the Sabbath of the 
Lord." 5 These yearly days expired by limitation at 
Christ's first advent. The type then met antitype; 
the shadow reached the substance. 6 

§3. CHRIST AND THE LAW. 

But the mission and death of Christ did not so affect 
the moral law. The fortieth Psalm places these words 
in the mouth of the predicted Messiah: "I delight to do 
Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within my heart." 
And the prophet Isaiah says of Him, ' 'The Lord is well 

3 Matt. 26 : 26-28. 4 See Lev. 23 : 4.-37. 5 Lev. 23 : 38. G Col. 2 : 14-17. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 47 

pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will magnify the 
law, and make it honorable. ' ' * These are predictions of 
the work of Christ and the relation He would sustain to 
the law of God. How did He, the great Prophet, the 
Teacher, Example, meet in His teaching and life these 
predictions ? There is so much evidence which might be 
presented that it is difficult to select. A few proofs only 
are presented; the intelligent reader will recall others 
equally clear and emphatic. 

§4. THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. 

i. In the first recorded sermon of Christ we have the 

following explicit statement: — 

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the proph- 
ets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say 
unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall 
in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever 
therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and 
shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom 
of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same 
shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto 
you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteous- 
ness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into 
the kingdom of heaven." a 

Divine wisdom anticipated that time when man would 
arise and say that Christ's teaching was antagonistic to 
the law of God. Hence He would leave no reason for 
such a thought as this. The law and the prophets would 
endure. Every prediction of the prophets of the past 
would be fulfilled. The promised inheritance to Abra- 
ham wouldT>e given to all the faithful. The ' 'new heav- 
ens and new earth," the everlasting reward, which could 
never pass away, would all appear as the prophets had 
predicted. But all which has been predicted by the 
prophets will never be fulfilled, or filled up, till eternity is 

1 Isa. 42:21. - Matt. 5 : 17-20. 



48 THE LORD'S DAY 

past, for the prophets predict this sinless, happy eter- 
nity. This is the strength of the text. Till all these 
predictions of the prophets are filled up, "one jot [the 
smallest letter] or one tittle [a point of a letter] shall in no- 
wise pass from the law." Any change of the Sabbath 
would affect the law in more than one jot and tittle. 
Therefore Christ came not to change the Sabbath, 
but to confirm it in every jot and tittle. 

2. Christ did not come to promulgate a new law. He 
did not come to establish a new plan of salvation. He 
came as the representative of the Father. He said to 
Philip: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet 
hast thou not known Me, Philip ? he that hath seen Me 
hath seen the Father; and how say est thou then, Show us 
the Father ? believest thou not that I am in the Father, 
and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto 
you I speak not of Myself; but the Father that dwelleth 
in Me, He doeth the works." 3 Certainly, nothing could 
be clearer than the above that Jesus did not come as 
lawgiver, but to teach the will of the Father. The 
same thought is expressed in John 7: 16, 17: "My doc- 
trine is not Mine, but His that sent Me. If any man 
will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether 
it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself. ' ' 

God's will is expressed in His holy law. This is 
shown in Ps. 40:8: "I delight to do Thy willy O my 
God; yea, Thy law is within my heart." See also 
Rom. 2:18, where it is stated of the Jews that they knew 
God's will because they were "instructed out of the 
law. ' ' So also Jesus said that not those who say, ' ' Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he 

3 John 14 : 9, 10. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 49 

that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven." 
On the other hand, to those who do not do God's will it 
is said, " Depart from Me, ye that work iniqtcity [lawless- 
ness, or transgression of law]." 4 Nothing could prove 
more conclusively that God's holy law — that which was 
His holy law in the days of David, the law in which the 
Jews were instructed — is His will, than the above texts. 
And he that willed to do that will would know Christ's 
doctrine, 5 because that doctrine was in harmony with that 
will. But a part of God's will, or holy law, was the Sab- 
bath; therefore Christ taught the obligation of the Sabbath 
of the Lord. 

3. When the young man came to Christ to inquire 
what he must do that he might have eternal life, Jesus 
replied, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the command- 
ments." 6 The young man replied by asking Jesus, 
"Which?" — which commandments, Master, those given 
from Sinai, or those taught us by the priests and scribes ? 
Jesus then quotes in part the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, 
and fifth, of the Decalogue, and then the summary of the 
last six, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
"All these have I kept," replied this moral young man; 
' ' what lack I yet ? ' ' He did not know his own heart, 
did not know that he loved riches more than God, self 
more than his neighbor; when, therefore, Jesus told him 
to sell his goods and give the proceeds to the poor, he 
went away sorrowful. He kept his vast possessions from 
his neighbor in need whom he thought he loved as him- 
self ; he could not follow the Saviour of the world, who 
had given him all he possessed. Thus the young man 

4 Matt. 7: 2i, 23. 5 John 7: 17. 6 See Matt 19: 16-22. 

4 



50 THE LORDS DAY 

was a transgressor of the law of God, both a covetous 
man and an idolater. 

But, says someone, ' 'Jesus did not mention the fourth 
commandment, or the Sabbath." True, He did not, 
neither did He mention the first, second, or third, or 
tenth commandment. Are these therefore not binding ? 
Christ mentioned parts of that great one law, offending 
in one point of which makes one ' 'guilty of all. ' ' 7 

But will the keeping of the commandments insure 
eternal life ? — It will. ' ' But as man has sinned, no one 
can keep the law." True, again; but an honest endeavor 
to keep the commandments of God will invariably lead 
to Christ, in whom all are made complete. 8 Therefore 
Jesus taught obedience to the commandments of God as 
requisite to eternal life. 

4. The teaching of Christ on another occasion shows 
that the morality that He taught was the same morality as 
taught by God's word during the times of the Levitical 
dispensation. When a scribe came to Jesus and asked 
Him, "Which is the great commandment in the law? 
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the 
second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law 
and the prophets." 9 Notice that our Lord did not lay 
down a new law. He was not even asked to do so. 
He was asked which was the great commandment that 
God had already given, and He replied by quoting for 

7 See James 2 : 8-12. 8 Gal. 3 : 24; see also p. 68. 
9 Matt. 22 : 36-40; see also Luke 10 : 25-28; Mark 12: 28-34. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 5 1 

the first great principle, Deut. 6:5, and for the second, 
Lev. 19: 18. And this was agreed to by the Jews. As 
recorded in Luke, the lawyer quotes from the Old Testa- 
ment the words which our Saviour here quotes; and as 
recorded by Mark, the scribe indorses the answer of Jesus. 
This conversation and the result show just this, that our 
Lord taught nothing w r hich was contrary to the Decalogue, 
the recognized moral law of the Levitical dispensation. 
His teaching was, therefore, in harmony with the law of 
the Sabbath held by the Jews. The commandments of 
that law relating to duty to God depended on the principle 
of love to God for obedience; and those commandments 
relating to duty to man depended for obedience on the 
principle of love to our neighbor. 

§5. THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 

Christ's death upon the cross confirmed the law, and, 
therefore, confirmed the Sabbath, which constituted part 
of that law. Christ came to "save His people from 
their sins." 1 "Sin is the transgression of the law." 2 
This law which points out sin is the Decalogue, the law 
which says, "Thou shalt not covet." 3 Jesus died to 
"redeem us from all iniquity," or lawlessness. 4 He was 
made "to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might 
be made the righteousness of God in Him." 3 If the 
holy law of God could have been abrogated, changed, or 
set aside in any way, Jesus need not have died. The 
death of Christ upon the cross is the mightiest evidence 
of the holiness of the law of God which can be produced. 
The thunders of Sinai find their divine counterpart in 

x Matt. 1 :2i. 2 Johti3:4. 3 Rom. 7:7. 4 Titus 2 : 14; Gal. 1 14. 5 2 Cor. 5:21. 




fta) 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 53 

the cross of Calvary. The suffering One of Calvary 
speaks to everyone: Behold the holiness, majesty, and 
integrity of that law which requires the death of the Son 
of God, the Creator of worlds, to vindicate its holiness and 
release man from its claims. The record of the life of 
Christ points not to one single word or deed which 
showed that He had any disregard for the Sabbath. He 
ever showed reverence for the entire law of God. 

| 6. THE NEW COVENANT. 

At Christ's death the new covenant was confirmed. 
God's testament, which had been manifested in type and 
promise, was now forever fixed. There could no change 
take place after this. "A testament is of force after men 
are dead. ' ' 1 And, ' 'though it be but a man' s covenant, yet 
if it be confirmed, no man disannulled!, or addeth thereto. ' ' 2 
The will of him who is dead can undergo no change. 
Whatever is added to such a document, even though it 
be but a single moment after the death of the testator, is 
a forgery, and is utterly worthless. The one who deals 
thus with such a document is one of the greatest of crimi- 
nals. Even so with the New Testament, sealed with the 
blood of Christ. Whatever was in it at the time of seal- 
ing was forever binding. Nothing could be added after 
the death of Christ. One moment after that would stamp 
the addition an innovation, and absolutely worthless so 
far as having any binding force upon God's children is 
concerned. The death of Christ marks the boundary 
line of all innovations. He taught things not taught 
before. He magnified the law and made it honorable in 
His life and death. He introduced baptism, the ordinance 

1 Heb. 9:17. 2 Gal. 3 : 15- 



54 THE LORDS DAY 

of humility, and the Lord's Supper, before His death; 
but after His death, even one moment, no other institu- 
tion could be added by anyone to that divine document 
sealed with the blood of Christ Jesus, without making 
the one who did it guilty of high treason against the gov- 
ernment of God. God would not add anything, for He 
cannot deny Himself. But the first-day "Lord's day," 
or sabbath had no part in Christ' s teaching either before 
or after His death. 

§ 7. THE LAW OF THE NEW COVENANT. 

The holiness, integrity, and -perpetuity of the law of 

God, and hence of every part of that law, the fourth 

commandment included, are shown by those scriptures 

which most clearly reveal the work of the new covenant. 

The promise of the confirmation of this covenant is thus 

stated: — 

" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a 
new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of 
Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their 
fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them 
out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in My 
covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this 
is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after 
those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, 
and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, 
and they shall be to Me a people. And they shall not teach 
every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 
Know the Lord; for all shall know Me, from the least to the 
greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and 
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." 1 

It will be noticed that the above scripture is quoted 
from Jer. 31:31-34. Let the reader note the following 
facts concerning this covenant:— 

1 . It is not a new covenant in the sense that its oper- 
ations are new; it had existed in both promise and power 

!Heb. 8:8-12. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 55 

from the time when the Gospel was first given to man 
till the time when it was confirmed by the death of Christ. 
It is God's "everlasting covenant," 2 running parallel 
with the "everlasting Gospel," 3 which is the glad tidings 
of that covenant. 

2. It will be seen that it contains all the provisions nec- 
essary for the salvation of men, the most important of 
which is writing the law of God in the heart. With 
God's law in the heart the believer is made like God, 
and his eternal salvation is, therefore, assured. But Abel, 
and Enoch, and Noah all had faith in Christ, and, by 
virtue of the promises of this covenant, were justified 
(made righteous) and regenerated by its gracious pro- 
vision and power. 4 

3. It was the covenant confirmed with Abraham, " the 
father of all them that believe," 5 by the promise and oath 
of God, 6 upon which our very hope of salvation and eter- 
nal inheritance is based. 7 

4. It is the covenant by the provisions of which the 
law of God has been placed in the heart of all true be- 
lievers from Adam down, for of nothing else is such a 
work predicated. Illustrations of this work of writing 
God's law in the heart are given above in the cases of 
Abel, Enoch, and Noah. The same is true of all other 
faithful servants of God, such as Abraham, 8 Moses, 9 
David, 10 Elijah. 11 This work was wrought by the Spirit 
of God, through faith. 12 

5. It is the new covenant only in the sense of its be- 
ing the covenant last sealed. The covenant made with 

2 Heb. 13:20. 3 Rev. 14:6. 4 Heb. 11 =4-7; 1 John 3 : 12; Gen. 5 : 22 ; 7 : 1. 

5 Rom. 4 : 11-16. 6 Gen. 22 : 16-18; 7 Heb. 6 : 13-20. 8 Gen. 26:5. 

9 Heb. 3:5; 11 : 23-27. 10 Acts 13 : 22. n 2 Kings 2:1,9-12. 

i 2 Eze. 36:26, 27; Heb. 11:6, 



56 the lord's day 

Israel at Horeb was sealed with the blood of beasts at 
that time, and is called the first, or old covenant, because 
it was first confirmed or sealed. But the everlasting cov- 
enant, which existed in promise from the beginning, was 
not sealed till fifteen hundred years later, at the Cruci- 
fixion. When Christ died, the promise of the Surety 
was met, for it is by virtue of His offering then made 
that all the sins of the past are removed. 13 

6. Note again that the confirmation of the new cov- 
enant does not contemplate any change in the law, 14 
for the law that is written on the heart is the same law 
which was obligatory in the days of Jeremiah, b. c. 600. 
But this we all know to be the Decalogue, and the Dec- 
alogue enjoins the seventh-day Sabbath. 

2 8. WRITTEN BY THE SPIRIT. 

The law of God is written in the heart by the Spirit of 

God. Thus speaks the Lord through the prophet: — 

"And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to zvalk 
in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them." 1 

The glory of this work of the Spirit is most forcibly 
presented in 2 Corinthians 3. Upon this wonderful 
chapter we note the following important points: — 

1. That which commended the work of the apostles 
was not written commendations of men, but regenerated 
men themselves, in whose heart was written the law of 
God by " the Spirit of the living God." 2 That is, these 
converted men did not hold the mere outward form of 
the law in the written Scriptures, or even in its more ex- 
alted form on tables of stone, but their hearts had be- 
come the holy of holies, in which was the holy law and 
the presence of Christ. 

13 Heb. 9 : 15. 

14 See I 4 and onward on the teaching of Christ with respect to the law, 

1 Eze. 36 : 27. - 2 Cor. 3 : 4. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 57 

2. Paul and his associates were ' 'able ministers [preach- 
ers of the Gospel] of the new testament [covenant]; 
not of the letter [of the new covenant], but of the spirit 
[of the new covenant] ; for the letter [alone] killeth, but 
the spirit giveth life. ' ' 3 That the letter of the new cov- 
enant is referred to, the construction expressly demands. 
The mere letter of the Gospel, mere compliance with its 
outward forms, will not save, but only condemn. The 
apostle does not mean that the letter — the expression of 
the fact — is unimportant, for the truth is important as 
well as the spirit. 4 God demands both. But the letter 
of the Gospel alone cannot give life. 5 The true Christian 
receives the Gospel in the spirit of it — righteousness and 
love, and with the righteousness, life; for "the Spirit is 
life because of righteousness." 6 Observance of baptism 
and the Lord's Supper will not save; it is only Christ 
and His righteousness within which gives life. 

3. Then the apostle compares the ministration of the 

Spirit to those Corinthian Christians to the ministration 

of the same Gospel by Moses to those who received it 

only in the letter. He says: — 

"But if the ministration of death written and engraven in 
stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not 
steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his counte- 
nance; which glory was to be done away." 7 

It was not the ministration which was written and en- 
graven in stones, for a ministration — service — must be 
performed. It was the ministration of that which caused 
death. This is well illustrated by the case of Moses and 
the children of Israel in the giving of the law. Moses 
received that law not only in its letter, as written on ta- 
bles of stone, but in its spirit, as revealed in Christ Jesus, 

3 Verse 6. 4 John 4 : 23, 24. 5 Heb. 4 : 2. 6 Rom. 8: 10. 7 2 Cor. 3:7. 



58 the lord's day 

and his face shone because of the glory of the law writ- 
ten within him by the Spirit of Christ. 8 But the chil- 
dren of Israel did not thus receive the law, for their 
hearts were carnal. Therefore, to them the glory of 
God's presence, manifest in Moses' face, condemned 
them because of their sins. 9 The glory of the law con- 
demns the sinner, and, if he still retains his sins, it leaves 
him hopeless. It was God's Gospel which showed Is- 
rael their sins, but they did not believe, 10 did not see be- 
yond the mere letter, and, therefore, were condemned. 
But Moses saw not only this terrible glory of holiness, 
which condemned, but the glory of love, which justified 
and pl-aeed that same law within as a part of the very 
being. The glory of the law in justification and regen- 
eration through Christ was greater than the glory of the 
law in condemnation, so much greater that the condem- 
nation vanishes before the justification. It is mercy 
glorying against judgment. 11 The veil is unbelief, and so 
long as it remains, condemnation remains. But when 
faith renounces sin, and chooses God's law as revealed in 
Christ, the personification of that law, the greater glory 
of righteousness by faith eclipses the glory of condem- 
nation. To him who is Christ's, who has yielded all his 
sins to Christ, the law has no terrors, the Sabbath is not a 
"yoke," a "cross," or a "burden," but a blessed boon 
of life, filled with the fullness of Him who gave it, who is 
both Creator and Redeemer. To such an one also the 
Spirit of God is not only a convincer of sin, but a com- 
forter in righteousness, 12 for the Spirit of God received 
makes this law our friend. 13 The justified sinner is no 

8 Ex. 34 : 29, 30. 9 Ex. 34: 30-35; compare with Rom. 4: 15; 7: 9-12. 
10 Heb. 4: 2. u James 2: 13, margin. V2 John 16 : 7-10. 13 Gal. 5 : 22, 23. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 59 

longer under condemnation of the law, but walks in its 
blessed liberty of loving and doing all its requirements. 14 

19. THE NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 

The above is abundantly confirmed by those New 
Testament scriptures subsequent to the Crucifixion which 
refer to the Sabbath, or the law of which the Sabbath is a 
part. Note the following evidences: — 

i. The Use of the Sacred Term Sabbath. — If Sunday, 
or the first day of the week, was to be the Sabbath from 
the Crucifixion forward, Inspiration would designate it 
by the sacred term which before this had been applied 
to the seventh day. But how is this ? By what term 
does Inspiration refer to the seventh-day Sabbath ? Is 
it called plain "seventh day of the week," "the old 
Sabbath," "the Jewish Sabbath," or by any other term 
which would show it to be extinct or local ? — Not once do 
we find such terms applied to it. Take, first, the teaching 
of the evangelists. Matthew is supposed to have written 
his Gospel in A. d. 38, Mark in 61, Luke in 63 or 64, 
John in 97 or 98; or, respectively, seven, thirty, thirty- 
two, and sixty-six years after the Crucifixion of Christ. 
Every one of them speaks of the Sabbath kept by the 
Jews as ' ' the Sabbath," and speaks of it as the day which 
comes to us just before "the first day of the week." 
The following texts will prove this conclusively: — 

" In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the 
first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other 
Mary to see the sepulcher." l 

"And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and 
Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet 
spices, that they might come and anoint Him. And very early 

14 Gal. 5 : 18; 2 Cor. 3 : 17, 18; Ps. 119 : 45; James 1: 25. 1 Matt. 28 ; 1. 



60 THE LORD'S DAY 

in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the 
sepulcher at the rising of the sun." 2 

"And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and 
rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now 
upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they 
came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had 
prepared, and certain others with them." 3 

"The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that 
the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath 
day (for that Sabbath day was an high day), besought Pilate 
that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken 
away." 

"The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, 
when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone 
taken away from the sepulcher." 4 

Certainly if there had been a change in the day of the 
Sabbath at the death of Christ, we would expect a change 
in the name to correspond, especially on the part of those 
who had been nearest Him in disposition and association. 
But each writer calls that day the Sabbath which comes 
just before the first day of the week. In Matt. 24 : 20 we 
have another instance of the use of the word by our Lord. 
True, it was uttered before His Crucifixion, but it was 
near the close of His earthly life. It refers, however, to 
the Sabbath at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
A. D. 70, and it shows that our Lord recognized the Sab- 
bath so late as that by the sacred name. So solicitous 
Avas He, also, of its sacred character that He told His 
disciples to pray that their flight should not be on that 
day. It was a sacred day then; it is just as sacred now. 

In the Acts we have the Sabbath mentioned several 
times, and always as a sacred day. In chapter 13 we 
have the Sabbath twice spoken of, (1) as a day when 
Paul preached to the Jews, and (2) as a day ("the next 
Sabbath") when he preached to the Gentiles. "The 
next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together 

2 Mark 16: i, 2. 3 Luke 23 156; 24: 1. 4 John 19:31; 20; 1, 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 6l 

to hear the word of God." 5 This passage shows us 
that the seventh day — the day of meeting of the Jews — 
was recognized as the Sabbath in a. d. 45, and that the 
Gentiles evidently recognized it also as such, for it was 
the Gentiles that ' ' besought [Paul] that these words 
might be preached to them the next Sabbath. ' ' 6 Chap- 
ter 15:21 confirms what we have already said, namely, 
the Sabbath observed by the Jews — the seventh day — is 
still the Sabbath recognized by Inspiration, and identified 
by the sacred title " Sabbath." Acts 16:13; 17:2; 
18:4, a ^ so mention the Sabbath. The first passage re- 
cords a meeting of the apostle Paul with a company of 
devout worshipers of God, to whom he spoke the word 
of God. The second text speaks of three Sabbath days, 
in each of which, as his custom was, 1 Paul preached the 
Gospel. It was Paul's regular preaching day. And this 
is confirmed by the record in chapter 18:1—11. It is 
there stated that w r hen Paul went to Corinth he first found 
a Jew, who, of course, was a keeper of the seventh day, 
with whom he lodged. He not only made it a lodging 
place, but he joined with the Jew and his wife in their 
work during the working days of the week, as all were 
tent makers. And during the time he remained at Cor- 
inth, one year and six months, he preached the Gospel 
every Sabbath. 8 

§ 10. CEREMONIAL SABBATHS. 

The only place where the term ' ' sabbath ' ■ is used after 
this is in Col. 2: 16, but it does not here refer to the 
weekly Sabbath of the Lord. It refers to the yearly 
sabbaths of the Jews, which terminated at the cross, which 
were "a shadow of things to come; but the body is of 

6 Verse 44. 6 Verse 42. 7 Compare with Luke 4:16. 8 Verse 1 1 . 



62 THE LORDS DAV 

Christ." It refers in no respect to the Sabbath of the 
Lord our God. But this we have before considered. 1 
Sixty times the term sabbath is used in the New Testa- 
ment, and in every case but the last noticed it refers to 
one and the same day, — the seventh day of the week, 
the Sabbath of the Lord our God. The context of the 
sixtieth time shows conclusively that it refers to yearly 
sabbaths and not to a weekly Sabbath. 

§11. PERPETUITY OF SABBATH AND LAW. 

Other New Testament scriptures are equally emphatic 
in their testimony to the perpetuity and obligation of the 
Sabbath and the law. The first text which we will no- 
tice, for a twofold purpose, is as follows: — 

"And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and . 
rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. ' ; 2 

The context shows that this resting on the Sabbath 
day was after the preparation for embalming the body 
of Jesus. Notice (i) that the Sabbath on which they 
rested was the Sabbath "according to the command- 
ment," or, as the Syriac reads, "as it is commanded.' ' 
But the commandment enjoins the seventh day: "The 
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. ' ' 3 
Here is presented the example of the women who fol- 
lowed the example of their Lord in the observance of the 
seventh day. This testimony of the word of God fixes 
the Sabbath upon which these women rested as the same 
seventh day in regular succession as that enjoined by the 
commandment, fifteen hundred years before. And the 
record of that date, as we have abundantly shown, iden- 
tifies the seventh day of that dispensation with the sev- 
enth day on which God rested in the beginning. 4 This 

l See pages 45, 46. 2 Luke 23 : 56. 3 Ex. 20 : 10. 4 See pages 23-26. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 63 

Sabbath, then, during which our Lord rested in the 
grave, was the seventh day in regular succession from 
creation down. This is the testimony of the word of 
God, and the testimony of the word of God is just as 
true and as worthy of belief in this respect as it is that 
Jesus died for our sins. (2) Note, also, that this Sabbath 
was not only the Sabbath ''according to the command- 
ment," but it was the day just before the first day of the 
week, for on the next day, the first day of the week, they 
went to the sepulcher to embalm the body of Christ. 5 
The day before the first day of the week is the seventh 
day of the week previous. It is always and forever so. 
Therefore the Sabbath commandment, together with 
Luke 23:56 and 24:1, does positively teach that the 
seventh day of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord. 

I 12. THE ROYAL LAW. 

Another testimony which proves the perpetuity and 
obligation of the Decalogue, and, therefore, of the Sab- 
bath, is James 2:8-12. The apostle has under consid- 
eration the commandments relating to man's duty to 
man, but that does not affect the force of his testimony 
for the Sabbath. He says: — 

"If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well; but if ye have 
respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the 
law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole 
law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He 
that said [margin, "that law which said"], Do not commit 
adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adul- 
tery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the 
law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by 
the law of liberty." 

We call attention to the following points: (1) The law 

5 Luke 24 : 1. 



64 THE LORD*S DAY 

to which attention is called is ' ' the royal law, ' ' the law 
of the great King. (2) It is the royal law "according 
to the Scriptures. ' f The only Scriptures then written 
and known as such were the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures. He therefore referred directly to the law of God 
in the Old Testament. (3) It is the ten-commandment 
law, for two of its precepts are quoted, ■ ' Thou shalt not 
kill, ' } " Thou shalt not commit adultery. ' ' (4) That law 
is one law, indivisible, so united that whosoever breaks 
one command is guilty of all; that is, he despises the 
authority of the law and its Author. (5) That law is our 
rule of conduct here in speaking and doing, even as it 
was in the Levitical dispensation. (6) And as it is the 
rule of conduct here, it must also be the rule of judgment 
in the last great day, even as it is declared to be by 
both Old and New Testaments. 1 If every point in God's 
law was obligatory when James wrote his epistle, as the 
above text most clearly and emphatically declares, every 
point and precept, every jot and tittle, is just as obliga- 
tory now. Need more evidence be given? Is not the 
above sufficient ? 

CHAPTER II.— THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST AND THE 
SABBATH. 

The apostle Paul exclaims: — 

"I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the 
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. 
. . . For therein [that is, in the Gospel] is the righteousness 
of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just 
shall live by faith." 2 

The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ proves the obliga- 

1 See Eccl. 12 : 13, 14. 2 Rom. i: 16, 17. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 65 

tion and perpetuity of God's law, and is designed to bring 
us into harmony with all its righteous requirements. 
The above text shows four things: (1) That man needs 
salvation. (2) That this salvation is revealed in the 
Gospel. (3) It is bestowed upon the faithful. (4) This 
salvation comes to us through the righteousness of God. 

gl.WHAT THE LAW IS TO THE SINNER. 

The righteousness of God is expressed in His holy lav:. 
"All Thy commandments are righteousness." Those 
who ' ' know righteousness, ' ' says the Lord, are ' ' the 
people in whose heart is My law. ' ' * But man of him- 
self cannot keep this law. In its presence every mouth 
is shut, and ' ' all the world ' ' is condemned as guilty. 
' ' For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
God." 2 The law, being righteousness, is life, and its 
perfect keeping gives and perpetuates life; but the law 
which was ordained to life, man finds, because he has 
transgressed it, "to be unto death." 3 The sinner's 
heart, "the carnal mind, is enmity against God; for it is 
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." i 
The law, therefore, is to the sinner, from his view point, 
"a law of sin and death," 5 because it continually con- 
demns man as a sinner; the flesh has no power to rise 
above the sin, and the sinner is therefore condemned to 
death: " Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." 6 
The sinner knows only the negative side of God's law, 
the death side, the side of the transgressor. He hears 
only the mountain quaking and the voice which strikes 
terror to his whole being. 

12. THE ONE RIGHTEOUS. 

' ' By the obedience of One shall many be made right- 

l Ps. 119:172; Isa. 51:7. - Rom. 3 : 19, 23. 3 Rom.7:io. 4 Rom. 8 :y. 

5 Rom. 7 : 24, 25; 8 : 2. 6 James 1 : 15. 



66 the lord's day 

eous." x The Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, un- 
dertook our salvation for us. ' ' He [God] hath made 
Him [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2 
Taking upon Him the " sinful flesh," voluntarily bearing 
the sins of the world ' ' in His own body on the tree, ' ' 
being made in all things like unto His brethren, He was 
' ' delivered for our sins. " ' ' He became obedient unto 
death," stooping to the very depth of sin — death — yet not 
a sinner, that He might lift man up to God. His death 
redeemed us from our sins. ' ' Who was delivered for our 
offenses. " " Who gave Himself for us, that He might 
redeem us from all iniquity [law breaking]." ? But in 
all this, while He was reckoned sin for us, while He bore 
our sins, He ' ' did no sin, neither was guile found in His 
mouth." He could say to the Jews, "Which of you 
convinceth Me of sin?" He said to His disciples, " I 
have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in 
His love. ' ' i And all this was in harmony with what 
He said through the prophet one thousand years before 
He came: " I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, 
Thy law is within My heart. ' ' And the Father said of 
Him, "He will magnify the law, and make it honor- 
able." 5 And therefore Jesus said, " I came down from 
heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him 
that sent Me." 6 He therefore did God's will as ex- 
pressed in His holy law. In other words, God wrought 
His own will through Christ. ' ' The Father that dwell- 
eth in Me," says Jesus, " He doeth the works." " God 
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 
( ' God was manifest in the flesh. ' ' 7 Christ ' ' emptied him- 

1 Rom. 5 : 19. 2 2 Cor. 5 : 21. 3 Rom. 4 : 25; Titus 2 : 14. 

4 1 Peter 2:22; John 8 : 46; 15 : 10. " 5 Ps.40: 7, 8; Isa. 42 : 21. 6 John6:38. 

7 John 14 : 10; 2 Cor. 5 : 19; 1 Tim. 3 : 16. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 67 

self," 8 and the Father came in and filled Him, and lived 
in Christ His own blessed life of righteousness. The life 
— the obedience — of Jesus Christ said to the world just 
what God's righteousness, God's holy law, meant. Jesus 
knew the positive side of the law, the righteous side, the 
life side, the side of the faithful and obedient. 

§3. HIS OBEDIENCE OURS BY FAITH. 

But while Christ died to redeem us from sin, we are 
justified, saved, or made righteous, by His life; 1 that 
is, the righteousness of God which was in Christ, the 
obedience of Christ, is placed upon those who have faith 
in Him. ' ' But now the righteousness of God without 
[" apart from," R. V.] the law is manifested, being wit- 
nessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteous- 
ness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and 
upon all them that believe; for there is no difference." 
"By the obedience of One shall many be made right- 
eous. " st That we might be made the righteousness of 
God in Him." 2 His righteousness, His right doing, or 
obedience, is reckoned to us because we believe ; 3 and 
the law witnesses, or testifies, that this righteousness by 
faith is the true righteousness, because it is the same 
righteousness, — the righteousness of the law lived by 
Jesus Christ. The law is first a witness against the sin- 
ner. It leads him to God, condemned to die. 4 The 
sinner raises his eyes to the One from whom he expects 
to receive his sentence of doom, and there stands the 
cross of Calvary, with the light and love of God shining 
from the face of Jesus Christ. He hears the sentence: 
"My son, thy sins are forgiven thee. I have bought 

8 Phil. 2 : 7 (R. V.). 1 Rom. 5:10; 4 : 25. - Rom. 3:21, 22; 5 : 19; 2 Cor. 5 : 21. 
3 Rom. 4:3-7. 4 Gal 3:24. 



68 the lord's day 

them; they are Mine. I give you righteousness, because 
you believe Me; it is thine, ' ' The sinner turns to the law 
which brought him to Christ, and it is all aglow with the 
light and love and glory of God. The sin is gone, and 
the law stands as a blessed witness to the transaction. 
The righteousness which the erstwhile sinner has received 
is ■ ' witnessed [or testified to] by the law and the proph- 
ets ' ' as genuine. The sinner can then say, in a twofold 
sense: " The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise 
the simple. ' ' ' ' Thy testimonies [witnesses] that Thou 
hast commanded are righteous and very faithful." 
' * Thy testimonies also are my delight, and my counsel- 
ors." 6 

§4. HIS LIFE OURS. 

What then ? If God' s grace has abounded toward 
man in freeing him from the condemnation of the law, 
shall he continue in sin, shall he trangress the law " that 
grace may abound ? God forbid. How shall we, that 
are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" l "Let not 
sin [transgression of the law] therefore reign in your 
mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. ' ' 
i ' Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves serv- 
ants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; 
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto right- 
eousness?" 2 

But the same faith that lays hold upon Christ to justi- 
fication takes hold upon Christ's Spirit, power, life, that 
the same righteousness which was wrought in Christ in 
this world might be wrought in us in this world. This 
is the very object of God in forgiving us. "Who His 
own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that 

&Ps. 19:7; 119:138,24. * Rom. 6:1,2. 2 Verses 12, 16. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 69 

we, being dead to sins, should live iinto righteousness." 
' 'Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem xs&from 
all iniquity [law breaking], and purify unto Himself a pe- 
culiar people, zealous of good works. ' ' ' 'That the right- 
eousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 3 Those, therefore, 
who are in Christ will live the same life, be obedient to 
the same law, as was our Lord Jesus Christ. 

§5. CHRIST IN US. 

The life which the child of faith lives will be Christ 
living in him, even as the life of Christ was the Father 
living in Him. As Christ emptied Himself that the 
Father might fill Him, and did fill Him with all "the 
fullness of the Godhead," 4 so when we have the same 
mind that was in Christ Jesus, when we empty our- 
selves, renounce self, that He may fill us, that He may 
dwell in our hearts by faith, then we are complete in 
Him, and He dwells in us, "the hope of glory." 5 And, 
therefore, Christ prayed, and Paul said: — 

"That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I 
in Thee, that they also may be one in Us; that the world may 
believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou 
gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as 
We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be 
made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou 
hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." 6 

"For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, 
nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." 7 

"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the 
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and 
gave Himself for me." 8 

This indwelling of Christ is by His Spirit, and that 
Spirit will lead us to-day, even as it led Christ, to obey 

3 1 Peter 2:24; Titus 2: 14; Rom. 8:4. 4 Col.2:9. 6 Eph. 3 : 17; Col. 2 : 10. 
6 John 17 : 21-23. 7 Gal. 5:6. s Gal. 2:20. 



70 THE LORD'S DAY 

God; or, in other words, Christ in us will render obedi- 
ence to the holy law of God, as He did while He walked 
here upon the earth. To say that He will not is to deny 
that He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 
God's Spirit is in harmony with His holy law. Both are 
His, and when the carnal mind is taken away, and the 
mind and heart given by the Spirit of God takes its 
place, His law, or statutes, will be kept. This is in har- 
mony with the promise of the Lord through the prophet: — 

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put 
within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your 
flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My 
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye 
shall keep My judgments, and do them." 9 

By that Spirit the love of God is shed abroad in our 

hearts, and, therefore, we read: — 

"O how I love Thy law! it is my meditation all the day." 
"Love is the fulfilling [the doing] of the law." 
"This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; 
and His commandments are not grievous." 

"He thatsaith, I know Him [God], and keepeth not His com- 
mandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." 10 

The same truth, namely, that the Gospel of Christ 

leads to loving obedience to God's holy law, is thus 

stated in another way: — 

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, 
nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." 

"For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, 
nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love" 

"Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but 
the keeping of the commandments of God." ll 

The Spirit of God makes the new creature; the new 
creature possesses the faith which works by love; and 
' 'this is the love of God, that we keep His command- 
ments." No other creation avails in Christ Jesus; no 

Eze. 36 : 26, 27. 10 Ps. 119 : 97; Rom. 13 : 10; 1 John 5:3; 2:4. 

11 Gal. 6 : 15; 5 ; 6; 1 Cor. 7 : 19. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 7 1 

other faith is worthy the name, but that which willingly, 
lovingly, obeys God. 

§ 6. CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE. 

Having Christ's Spirit, we will follow in His footsteps, 
keeping the commandments of God, as did He; for it is 
said of Him, l, Who did no sin, neither was guile found 
in His mouth." And it is said of those who profess to 
be in Him: "He that saith he abideth in Him ought him- 
self also so to walk, even as He walked." 1 

From all the above — and much more might be said, 
much more proof might be given — it is clearly evident 
that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the power of 
God to place upon us, and within us, and to bring forth 
from us, because implanted in us, the righteousness of 
God and obedience to every precept of His law, the Sab- 
bath precept — the only Sabbath — no less than the rest. 
During the darkness of the past, men — good Christians — 
may not have seen this, but the light of God's truth is 
now shining, and God commands men everywhere to re- 
pent. Those who would teach that we may know God 
and yet not keep His commandments, or those who 
would fain trust in such teaching, would do well to read 
with prayerful hearts, in addition to what we have already 
quoted, the following texts : — 

"They profess that they know God; but in works they deny 
Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good 
work reprobate." 

"And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His 
commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not 
His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But 
whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God per- 
fected; hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith he 
abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He 
walked." 

1 1 Peter 2 : 22; 1 John 2 : 6. 



72 THE LORD'S DAY 

"For this is the love of God, that we keep His command- 
ments; and His commandments are not grievous." 2 

Shall we profess Christ and yet transgress the law 
which was the reflect of His life, and from the transgres- 
sion and transgressing of which He died to save us ? 
Shall we do this, reader, and thus put Christ before the 
world as the minister of sin? Did He not honor the 
whole law ? Did He not observe the Sabbath ? Can we 
call ourselves the followers of Christ, and yet walk on in 
open transgression to one of His most important and 
explicit commandments ? 



CHAPTER III.— SUNDAY IN APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

I i. SOME FIRST=DAY FACTS. 

Of Sunday from a scriptural basis we need only to 
speak briefly. The Bible testimony concerning it is simply 
negative. It may be summed up briefly in the following 
statements of fact, which it is hoped the reader will care- 
fully consider 1 : — 

i. Sunday is not mentioned in the word of God by 
any sacred name whatever. It is simply known as ' ' the 
first day of the week. ■ ' 

2. It is not given any sacred character; it is not called 
a rest day, a day of worship, or a holy day. 

3. Neither Christ nor his disciples are said to have 
shown any religious regard for the day by either precept 
or example. 

4. The first day of the week is mentioned only eight 
times in the New Testament, as follows: Matt. 28 : 1 ; 

2 Titus 1 : 16; 1 John 2 : 3-6; 1 John 5 : 3. 
1 For further proof see Bible Students 1 Library, Nos. 2, 24, 40, 53. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 73 

Mark 16 : 2, 9; Luke 24 : 1; John 20 : 1, 19; Acts 20 : 7; 
1 Cor. 16 : 2. 

5. The first six of these texts refer to the same first 
first-day after our Lord's Crucifixion, the day on which 
He appeared to His disciples. But, so far from its being- 
honored as a religious day, the greater part of it was 
spent in anxiety, doubt, and discouragement. Two of 
the disciples spent the day in a fifteen-mile walk from 
Jerusalem to Emmaus and return. 2 Evidently they did 
not regard the day as in any way sacred. Toward the 
close of the day the eleven disciples, disturbed and doubt- 
ing because of conflicting thoughts and reports, were 
gathered together at the place where they all lived when 
in Jerusalem. 3 The door was shut ' 'for fear of the Jews. ' ' 4 
Jesus there met with ten of the eleven for the first time, 
Thomas being absent, and gave them His blessing of 
' ' peace. ' ' * But that the disciples did not regard the day 
as in anywise consecrated to Christ or to the memory of 
His resurrection is clearly shown from the fact that they 
were terrified and affrighted when they saw Him, suppos- 
ing Him to be a spirit; 5 for they did not believe that He 
had risen. He ' ' upbraided them for their unbelief and 
hardness of heart, because they believed not them which 
had seen Him after He had risen." 6 

6. The next meeting of Jesus with His disciples was 
on an occasion when Thomas was with them, not "the 
next eighth day," as some would have it, but "after 
eight days ' ' 7 from that Sunday evening, certainly not 
on Sunday. The next recorded meeting of Christ with 
His disciples was on a fishing occasion, 8 which may have 
been the first day as well as any other of the ' ' six work- 

1 Luke 24 : 13-33. 3 Acts 1 : 13. 4 John 20 : 19. 5 Luke 24 : 37. 
6 Mark 16 : 13, 14. "John 20 : 26. 8 John 21; Matt. 28 : 16. 



74 the lord's day 

ing days. ' ' 9 The next meeting of which we have record 
was the fifth day of the week, at the time of His ascen- 
sion. 10 

7. The seventh text is Acts 20 : 7. If the context is 
examined it will be found that this meeting occurred, 
according to the Bible mode of reckoning time, on what 
would be called by us Saturday night, or the eve of the 
first day, even as we speak of New Year's eve, that is, 
the evening before New Year' s day. This meeting was 
a farewell meeting at the close of the Sabbath, lasting 
all night till Sunday morning. The rest of the day was 
spent by Paul's companions in taking the boat around the 
promontory from Troas to Assos, about fifty miles, and 
by Paul in walking overland, meeting them at the latter 
place. Thus, in hard labor Paul and his companions ob- 
served that Sunday. The whole record shows that the 
day had no characteristics of a Sabbath, and the meeting 
at Troas would probably not have been mentioned at all 
were it not for the fact that it was a farewell meeting, and 
that the notable miracle was wrought on that occasion of 
raising a young man to life. n 

8. The last instance of first-day mention is in 1 Cor. 
16 : 1, 2, which reads as follows: — 

"Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have 
given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon 
the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in 
store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings 
when I come." 

It is simply a charge from the apostles to the churches 
in Corinth and Galatia, that each member of them should 
' ' lay by him in store, ' ' that is, by himself, in his own 
house, as God had prospered him the previous week, 

9 Eze. 46:1. 10 Acts 1 : 4-13. n Acts 20 : 7-12. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 75 

that when Paul came the offering might be ready. The 
charge was only to certain churches for a specific purpose, 
and the language absolutely precludes a public collection, 
nor would the text ever have been used in proof of such 
a thing if the term "first day of the week " had not been 
used in common with the apostle's charge. 

§2. TEACHING OF PAUL. 

The apostle Paul's teaching, in its absence of all 
mention of first-day sacredness, is strong inferential evi- 
dence, amounting to almost positive proof, that the Sun- 
day sabbath is not apostolic. Paul was the great apostle 
to the gentiles. It was his custom, as has been previ- 
ously shown, to preach upon the Sabbath, and no charge 
was brought against him by his Jewish brethren of trans- 
gressing the Sabbath, or in anywise, by precept or exam- 
ple, detracting from its sacred character. l On the other 
hand, he expressly declares : — 

" I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have 
showed you and have taught you publicly, and from house to 
house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, 
repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 2 

But he has nowhere told us that observance of Sun- 
day "was profitable." On the other hand, repentance 
has respect to sin; "sin is the transgression of the law," 
and the Sabbath commandment is a part of the law. 
Therefore, in teaching repentance, or turning from sin, 
Paul taught the perpetuity of the Sabbath law and the 
necessity of turning from its transgression. But this has 
been abundantly shown. Again he says: — 

" For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel 
of God." 3 

1 Acts 28: 17, 21. Acts 20: 20, 21. 3 Acts 20: 27. 



j6 THE LORD*S DAY 

And then he commends his brethren to God's word 
(the Scriptures now known as the Old Testament), ' 'which 
is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance 
among all them which are sanctified." 4 But in all of 
Paul's writings he has not taught as a part of God's 
counsel which he had "not shunned to declare," that 
Sunday was the Sabbath, or the Lord's day, and nowhere 
in the word of God's grace, to which he "commends" 
us, do we find aught of this. 

In view of this we may certainly conclude that the 
Sunday sabbath, Sunday Lord's day, or Sunday sacred- 
ness in any form, is not the teaching of the word of God. 
Jesus said, "Every plant, w r hich My heavenly Father hath 
not planted, shall be rooted up." 5 First-day sacredness 
is not of God^s planting. To teach that it is, to teach 
that it supersedes the Sabbath of God's appointment, is 
to make void the commandments of God by the traditions 
and teaching of men. 6 



CHAPTER IV.— THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH. 

§ 1 . HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. 

"History repeats itself." God warns men and peo- 
ples by the examples left on record before. He gave us 
the history of the sins and the rejection of His people 
anciently, that we might be admonished. That history 
was * 'written for our learning, ' ' and ' 'for our admonition, 
upon whom the ends of the ages are come. ' ' I 

Note the following striking parallel between the Leviti- 
cal and Christian dispensation: — 

4 Verse 32. 5 Matt. 15:13. 6 Matt. 15 13-9. Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10: 11, R. V. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 



77 



LEVITICAL DISPENSATION. CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 



ANCIENT ISRAEL. 

i. Called out of Egypt and 
sin to serve God. 

2. Faithful for two genera- 
tions. 

3. Backsliding, persecution, 
partial reform, and following 
heathen customs, rejecting God 
and choosing a king. 

4. Great worldly prosperity, 
pride, and consequent apos- 
tasy, sun worship. 

5. The Dark Ages. The 
apostates in idolatry, the faith- 
ful persecuted, followed by the 
captivity of the Jews. 

6. Partial reformation under 
Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehe- 
miah. 

7. Degenerating into dry, 
dead forms, divisions into 
sects, exaltation of tradition of 
elders above the word of God. 

8. Last apostasy, rejection, 
and crucifixion of Son of God, 
and calling out of remnant. 



MODERN ISRAEL. 

1. Called out of apostate 
Jewish Church and heathen 
world to serve God. 

2. Faithful for two genera- 
tions. 

3. Backsliding, persecution, 
partial reform, and following 
heathen customs. Constan- 
tine usurps the place of Christ. 

4. Great worldly prosperity, 
pride, union of church and 
state, and a paganized, sun- 
worshiping Christianity. 

5. The Dark Ages. The 
apostate church a persecutor; 
the conscientious persecuted 
and slain. 

6. Partial Reformation under 
Wycliffe, Luther, Zwingle, etc. 

7. Dengenerating into empty 
forms, multiplying of creeds, 
union of church and state, ex- 
altation of tradition of fathers 
above the word of God. 

8. Last apostasy, persecution 
of Christ again in the person 
of His followers, and the call- 
ing out of the last remnant. 



As in the beginning of the Levitical dispensation the 
Sabbath was prominent, so in the Christian. As it was 
confirmed in the former by the voice of God and the 
tables of the law, so it was confirmed in the latter by the 
personal example, teaching, and cross of Christ. As men 
in departing from God in the former forgot the Sabbath 
of the Lord, so they did in the latter. All these specifi- 
cations are abundantly confirmed by Scripture and history. 

§3. THE CHANGE OF TOE DAY. 

But how was the change of the Sabbath brought about ? 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 79 

Once all of the professed people of God observed the 
seventh day. Now the greater part of them observe the 
first. Why and how and when the change ? We have 
learned in foregoing pages that no change was wrought 
either by Christ or His apostles. By whom was it 
wrought ? What has the word of God to say concerning 
it? 

These are important questions, and thousands in all 
parts of the world are asking them. It is the object of this 
and succeeding chapters to answer them. Although the 
Bible clearly shows that neither Christ nor His apostles 
changed the Sabbath, nor instituted the Sunday Lord's 
day, the word of God does clearly and emphatically pre- 
dict the power that should attempt to do this. Not only 
have we the prediction of the word of God, but we have 
the bold and shameless confession of the criminal, boast- 
ingly put forth as an evidence of its power and authority. 
This is further confirmed by reliable testimony. 

I 3. THE DIVINE PREDICTIONS. 

The early and complete apostasy of the church of this 
dispensation is told in so many scriptures that the limits 
set to this work will not permit their examination. We 
are not only told of the false prophets, the love waxing 
cold because of abounding iniquity, the denying of Christ, 
and speaking evil of truth, the perilous times because of 
selfishness in the church, the false teachers of unsound 
doctrines, 1 but there is also definitely predicted the rise 
of the very power that should think to change God's law. 

1. The apostle Paul said to the church of Christ: — 

''For I know this, that after my departure shall grievous 
ivolves enter in among you r, not sparing the flock. Also of your 

1 See Matt. 24 : 9-13, 2 Peter 2:1,2; 2 Tim. 3 : 1-5; 4 : 1-4. 



8o THE LORD'S DAY 

own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things, to draw 
away disciples after them. ' 7 2 

2. In 2 Thess. 2: 7 he declares that "the mystery of 

iniquity [lawlessness, law breaking] doth already work," 

but was then hindered from its full development. Its 

rise and fuller growth he describes in verses 3 and 4: — 

' 'Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day [the 
coming of Christ] shall not come, except there come a falling 
away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdi- 
tion; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is 
called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in 
the temple [or church, see 1 Cor. 3 : 16; Eph: 2 : 20-22] of God, 
showing himself that he is God. ,; 

The great Head of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ, 3 
and the law of the church is the law of God, which came 
through Christ. Now the only way that a power can 
oppose God is to enact laws contrary to God's law, and 
demand obedience thereto. The only way in which it 
can exalt itself above God is to demand that its law shall 
be obeyed in preference to God's law. The same law 
promulgated by two rival powers in the same territory 
would be an impossibility, and would show no distinction 
between the adherents of the two powers. There must 
be a differe7ice in the laws to have opposition, and, there- 
fore, this power, coming into God's territory, must change 
God's law, and this change or difference between 
the law T of God and the law of this usurping power must 
be the very mark of opposition to God and exaltation 
above Him. 

3. This is made still clearer by another prophecy in 
the seventh chapter of Daniel. In the portrayal of the 
Papacy under the symbol of the little horn, concerning 
w r hich no less than eleven distinct specifications are given, 
the prophet thus foretells its work: — 

2 Acts 20 : 29, 30. ' 3 Eph. 1 : 22, 23. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 8 1 

4 'And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and 
shall wear out the saints of the Most High; and he shall think 
to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into 
his hand until a time and times and half a time." 4 

Here are given three specifications of crime: (a) He 
shall speak great words against the Most High. The 
Papacy has done this in its blasphemous assumptions, 
titles, and claims. (b) He shall wear out the saints of 
the Most High. History witnesses to the fulfillment of 
this in the multitudes slain during the Dark Ages. (V) 
He shall think to change the times and the law, evidently 
of the Most High. It is not a law which he can really 
change, but which, as rendered by the Douay Bible, 
* ' he shall think himself able ' ' to change. Wintle and 
Spurrell read, " Shall presume to change the appointed 
times and the law. ' ' 

The very first "time" appointed of God was the day? 
It began at evening, and closed at evening. 6 The other 
44 time" appointed of God was the week, marked by the 
Sabbath. A change in the begiiining of the day, and a 
change in the day of the Sabbath, is certainly a change 
of the 4 ■ times ' ' appointed of God, and these changes 
would change God's law in its most vital part, namely, 
the fourth commandment the only commandment in the 
law which pertains to time, and w r hich requires the ob- 
servance of the seventh day. This is the day, also, which 
God has given as His memorial, and in no other part of 
God's law would a change so exalt the power which 
made it. 7 

4 Verse 25, R. V. 5 See Genesis 1. 6 Lev. 23 : 32; Mark 1 132. 
7 The "time, and times, and half a time" are literally three and one-half 
years, or 1,260 days (see Rev. 12:6, 14; 13:5), and, according to the rule of 
symbolic or prophetic time, "each day for a year" (Num. 14:34; Eze. 4:6), 
symbolize 1,260 literal years. This period began in a. d. 538, when the bishop 
of Rome became "corrector of heretics," according to the decree of Justinian, 
given in a. d. 533. It ended in 1798, at which time the last deadly blow was 



82 THE LORD'S DAY 

4. Another prophecy of this apostate power, which 
we will briefly notice, is found in Revelation 13, under 
the symbol of a ten-horned, s*even-headed beast. That 
beast is of the same character, does the same work, and 
exists the same length of time, as the little horn of Daniel 
7. It is said of this beast, that "power was given him 
over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that 
dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are 
not written in the book of life of the Lamb." 8 

The highest worship is implicit and exact obedience. 8 
The worship of the beast is opposed to the worship of 
God. Obedience, then, to the beast becomes disobe- 
dience to God. Therefore those who yield worship or 
obedience to the beast are marked by the very difference 
between their conduct and the conduct of those who obey 
God; and the difference which exists between the law of 
God and the law of the beast becomes the mark of either 
power. This is so plain as to need no further argument. 
But we have already seen that God has given the Sabbath 
as His sign of authority and power; and the foregoing 
prophecies show that the change w r hich the Papacy has 
made in God's law in respect to the Sabbath must neces- 
sarily be its mark. This is w r hat the Papacy claims, as 
the following quotations will show. 

given to papal domination in the middle ages by the overthrow and capture 
of Pope Pius VI. by the French army under General Berthier. 

For authority see "Speech of a Bishop in Ecumenical Council," 1870, printed 
in Vatican Council, p. 189; "Gavazzi's New York Lectures," 1853; " Croly on 
the Apocalypse," pp. 167-173, 183 (second edition); "Thiers' French Revolu- 
tion," vol. 4, p. 246; "Gibbon's Decline and Fall of Roman Empire," chap. 
41, par. 22-30; "Chambers' Encyclopedia," article Pius. 

It was during this period of 1,260 years that God in His inscrutable wisdom 
permitted His saints to be persecuted and His law to be transgressed, the sign 
of His Godhead — His power to create and save— to be torn from its place, 
that humanity might know the intrinsic wickedness of the mystery of iniquity, 
and the danger of following anything else save Christ and His word. The 
inference is also clear that at the end of this period greater light should shine 
from God's word, and the wicked work of the Papacy in this respect be 
revealed. 

8 Rev. 13 : 7, 8. 9 See Matt. 4 : 9, 10; John 14: 15; 15: 14. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. cS3 



14. CONFESSION OF THE CRIMINAL. 

The criminal not only confesses, but boasts of the crime. 

i. Eusebius, one of the most eminent Cl Fathers" oi 
the Catholic Church, the contemporary, the apologist, 
and the deifier of the corrupt Constantine, says: — 

All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath . 
these we have transferred to the Lord's day (Sunday). 1 

The "we" to whom he refers are Constantine, Pope 
Sylvester, and such corrupt bishops as Eusebius. 

2. In "Butler's Catechism," a work of authority used 
in Catholic schools, is the following question and answer 
on the Sabbath 2 commandment: — 

Ones. — Say the third commandment. 

Ans. — Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. 

Q. — What is commanded by the third commandment? 

A. — To spend the Sunday in prayer and other religious duties. 

But all know that this is what is not commanded by the 
Sabbath commandment. 

3. The "Doctrinal Catechism," pp. 101, 174, 351-355, 
offers proof that Protestants are not guided by Scripture. 
We present two of the questions and answers: — 

Ques. — Have you any other way of proving that the church 
has power to institute festivals of precept ? 

Ans. — Had she not such power, she could not have done that 
in which all modern religionists agree with her, — she could not 
have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the 
week , for the observance of Saturday , the seventh day, a change 
for which there is no scriptural authority, 

Q. — When Protestants do profane work upon Saturday, or 
the seventh day of the week, do they follow the Scripture as 
the only rule of their faith? — do they find this permission clearly 
laid down in the Sacred Volume? 

1 "Commentary on the Psalms," quoted in "Cox's Sabbath Literature," vol i, 
p. 361. 

2 In the Roman Catholic enumeration of the commandments the first and 
secondare counted as one, while the tenth is divided. Thus the fourth com- 
mandment is called the third. 



84 the lord's day 

A. — On the contrary, they have only the authority of tradition 
for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of 
God's commandments , which He has never clearly abrogated, 
"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day." 

4. In another Catholic work, called the "Abridgment 
of Christian Doctrine," the Catholic Church asserts its 
power to change the law, in the following manner: — 

Ques. — How prove you that the church hath power to com- 
mand feasts and holy days ? 

Ans. — By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, 
which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contra- 
dict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most 
other feasts commanded by the same church. 

Q. — How do you prove that? 

A. — Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the church 's 
power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and 
by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny^ in 
fact, the same power. 

5. Ign. F. Hoostman, chancellor of Archbishop Ryan, 

of Philadelphia, in a letter to Mr. E. E. Franke, of New 

York, says: — 

Consult any Catholic work that has a chapter on tradition, 
and you should find what you need. The church alone is 
authority for the transfer from Saturday to Sunday. 

C. F. Thomas, chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons, in reply- 
ing by the directio?i of Cardinal Gibbons to Mr. John R. 
Ashley, of Rock Hall, Md., under date of Feb. 25, 1892, 
says : — 

1. Who changed the Sabbath? 
Answer — The holy Catholic Church. 

2. Are Protestants following the Bible or the holy Catholic 
Church in keeping Sunday ? 

An s.— The Protestants are following the custom- i}ttroduced 
by the holy Catholic Church} 

Before you, reader, is the crime charged by God's 
word, and the confession of the criminal to the crime. 

3 The above statement, from Cardinal Gibbons, is emphatically confirmed by 
a letter from him under date of January 8, 1895, to Mr. E. E. Franke, of 43 
Bond Street, New York. See American Sentinel of January 24, 1895. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 85 

Nay, it is more than confession; the Papacy boasts of the 
change she has made in the Sabbath as the mark of her 
power. The pope claims to be the "vicar of God," 
"Lord God upon earth," and he holds forth to the world 
as proof that he is God, that he is above God, the change 
that he has made in the law spoken by Jehovah, kept by 
patriarch, prophet, and apostle, and confirmed by Christ 
our Lord, both in precept and example. "That the 
[Roman Catholic] Church hath power " she declares is 
proved ' 'by the VERY ACT of changing the Sabbath 
into Sunday." The Sunday Lord's day then is the 
mark of the Papacy, declared so prophetically, and claimed 
so by the Papacy itself. 

The testimony of history as to the author of the Sun- 
day Lord's day is told in the following chapter. The 
evidence there presented is wholly from Protestant first- 
day observers. 

CHAPTER V.-THE TESTIMONY OF MEN. 

U.TRUE PROTESTANTISM. 

After the Bible what ? When the word of God has 
spoken clearly, emphatically, decidedly, in both precept 
and example, of its Author, what more does he want 
who sincerely desires to do God' s will ? What more 
does the genuine Protestant ask ? Says Dowling : — 

The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants! 
Nor is it of any account in the estimation of the genuine Prot- 
estant, how early a doctrine originated, if it is not found in 
the Bible ? He learns from the New Testament itself that 
there were errors in the time of the apostles, and that their 
pens were frequently employed in combating those errors. 
Hence, if a doctrine be propounded for his acceptance, he asks, 
Is it to be found in the Inspired Wo,rd ? Was it taught by the 
Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles? If they knew nothing of 



86 THE LORD S DAY 

it, no matter to him whether it be discovered in the musty 
folio of some ancient visionary of the third or fourth century, 
or whether it spring from the fertile brain of some modern 
visionary of the nineteenth, if it is not found in the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, it presents no valid claim to be received as an article of 
his religious creed. More than this, we will add that, though 
Cyprian, or Jerome, or Augustine, or even the fathers of an 
earlier age, Tertullian, Ignatius, or Irenaeus, could be plainly 
shown to teach the unscriptural doctrines and dogmas of 
popery, . . . still the consistent Protestant would simply ask, 
Is the doctrine to be found in the Bible? Was it taught by 
Christ and His apostles? * . . . 

The great question at issue between popery and Protestant- 
ism is this: Is the Bible only to be received as the rule of faith, 
or the Bible and tradition together ? Is no doctrine to be re- 
ceived as matter of faith unless it is found in the Bible, or may 
a doctrine be received upon the mere authority of tradition, 
when it is confessedly not to be found in the Sacred Scriptures ? 
The whole Christian world, both nominal and real, are divided 
by this question into two great divisions. The consistent and 
true-hearted Protestant, standing upon this rock, 'The Bible 
and the Bible only," can admit no doctrine upon the authority 
of tradition. 2 

These same principles have been iterated and reiterated 
by Protestantism ever since, and there is scarcely a creed 
among Protestant denominations which does not in some 
way or another declare for the "Bible and the Bible 
alone." Why then consult the "fathers" and the testi- 
mony of men of post-apostolic times? Simply this: 
"Admissions in favor of truth from the ranks of its ene- 
mies," says President Asa Mahan, "constitute the highest 
kind of evidence." It will be shown by the following 
witnesses, every one of whom were or are first-day ob- 
servers, and did or do belong to first-day churches, that 
the foregoing' positions taken in this book as regards the 
baselessness of Sunday sacredness and the sacredness, 
perpetuity, and obligation of the Sabbath of the fourth 
commandment, are both sound and scriptural. Not only 

"History of Romanism," book 2, chap. 1, sec. 3. Id., sec. 4. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 8 J 

that, Dut these witnesses will show how the Sunday came 
to be observed, and how the Sabbath was almost wholly 
crushed out. * ^-. 

g2. EARLY INTRODUCTION OF ERROR. 

The student of church history can never be too cau- 
tious in the search for truth among the traditions of the 
church. It takes but a little time for error to creep in. 
An instance of this is given in the book of Exodus, chap- 
ters 19 to 32. Previous to the speaking of the Decalogue, 
and shortly after that sublime display of God's majesty, 
such as earth had never before witnessed, Israel had 
solemnly promised, "All that the Lord hath said will we 
do, and be obedient;" 1 and yet within forty days they 
had made them a god of gold, had said of that golden 
Egyptian Apis, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which 
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, ' ' 2 and had 
made a feast to it and called it "a feast to the Lord [Je- 
hovah]. ' ' Well, it is for truth that God gave the inspired 
record of those times, instead of leaving it to the traditions 
of those who departed from Him. 

In the Christian dispensation, even in the days of the 
apostles, "the mystery of iniquity" did "already work;" 3 
men had already gone into error, overthrown ' 'the faith 
of some;" 1 antichrist was already manifesting itself; 5 and 
the church would then have divided after men if the 
apostles had not been united. 6 J. Dowling, D. D., well 
says : — 

There is scarcely anything which strikes the mind of the care- 
ful student of ancient ecclesiastical history with greater surprise 
than the comparatively early period zX which many of the cor- 
ruptions of Christianity, which are embodied in the Romish 

1 Ex. 19:8; 24:7, 2 Ex. 32:4.5- . 3 2Th€ss, 2:7- 4 2 Tim. 2:17, 18. 

i l John 4 : 1-3. G See 1 Cor. 3 ; 3, 4. 



88 THE LORDS DAY. 

system, took their rise; yet it is not to be supposed that where 
the first originators of many of these unscriptural notions and I 
practices planted these germs of corruption, they anticipated ! 
or even imagined that they would ever grow into such a vast 
and hideous system of superstition and error as that of popery. 7 
Each of the great corruptions of later ages took its rise in a 
manner which it would be harsh to say was deserving of strong ; 
reprehension. 8 

Testimony in regard to the origin of Sunday observ- 
ance will be found in the second chapter of Part II, 
* ' During the Levitical Dispensation. ' ' Evidence sufficient, 
is there given to show that the worship of the sun is one 
of the oldest and almost universal forms of idolatry, and' 
that Sunday was the special day honored by the sun 
worshipers. The Romans, and the pagan nations under 
their rule, at the opening of the Christian era were smra 
worshipers. Some of the Roman emperors chose the: 
sun as their patron divinity. Augustus chose Apollo. 
Antoninus Pius built one of the most magnificent temples 
of earth in honor of the sun, at Baalbec. Bassianus, the 
second emperor after Caracalla, named himself Elagabalus, 
the name under which the sun w T as worshiped in Egypt. 
After Elagabalus, Constantine was the most zealous of sun 
worshipers. Says Gibbon: "The sun was universally 
celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Con- 
stantine. " 9 For his Sunday law see a little later on.. 
Everything was prepared on Satan' s part to again over- 
whelm the church with error. Only Christ held in the 1 
heart by faith would hinder the entrance of the man of 
sin. Satan ? s object was to cover the sign between the 
Creator and Redeemer and His people, As before, one 
of his principal agencies was sun worship, 

7 "History of Romanism," book 2, chap. 1, sec. 1. 
^"Natural History of Enthusiasm," p. 181. 
9 -* Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. 20, par. 3. 



90 THE LORDS DAY 

Our combination picture 10 is illustrative of dominant 
heathen worship. In the center we have the ruins of the 
Temple of Jupiter, to the Romans the father of all the 
gods; the others are son of Jupiter, Hercules, identical 
with the sun god Melcarth; the image of the sun; Parsee 
sun worship; the Asherim, the emblem of the female sun 
god, Astarte; and Constantine, one of the chief devotees 
of sun worship. 

g3- HOW SUNDAY CAME TO BE OBSERVED BY THE CHURCH. 

As before stated, Sunday sacredness was one of those 
errors which early crept into the church. It may all be 
summed up in this, that it was brought in by half- 
converted heathen philosophers and teachers, and half- 
converted hordes of heathen. See how the backslidden 
Galatian Christians turned back to their gods, and began 
again the observance of the heathen times and days. 1 
Says Tertullian, the earliest Christian writer, who with 
positive certainty applies the term Lord' s day to Sunday :~ ■ 

As often as the anniversary comes around, we make offerings 
for the dead [a heathen custom] as birthday honors. We count 
fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be unlawful. 
We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whit 
Sunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even 
though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward 
step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on 
our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, 
when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary 
actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign (of the 
cross) . 

If, for these and other such rules, you insist upon having 
positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition 
will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as 
their strengthener ; and faith as their observer. 2 

But faith, true faith, is founded on God's word, and 
nothing else. 3 Mosheim, in speaking of the second cen- 
tury, just after the death of John, truly observes: — 

10 See previous page, 
l Gal. 4:8-11. 2" xhe Chaplet," chap. 4. s Rom. 10 : 17. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 91 

It is certain that to religious worship, both public and private, 
many rites were added, without necessity, and to the offense of 
sober and good men. . . . 

First there is good reason to suppose that Christian bishops 
multiplied sacred rites for the sake of rendering the Jews and 
the pagans more friendly to them. 4 

A Sunday defender thus states the case:— 

That very day was the Sunday of their heathen neighbors and 
respective countrymen; and patriotism gladly united with expe- 
diency in making it at once their Lord's day and their sabbath. 
. . . If the authority of the church is to be ignored alto- 
gether by Protestants, there is no matter; because opportunity 
and common expediency are surely argument enough for so 
ceremonial a change as the mere day of the week for the 
observance of the rest and holy convocation of the Jewish Sab- 
bath. That primitive church, in fact, was shut up to the adop- 
tion of Sunday, until it became established and supreme, when 
it was too late to make another alteration; and it was no irrev- 
erent or undelightful thing to adopt it, inasmuch as the first day 
of the week was their own high day at any rate, so that their 
compliance and civility were rewarded by the redoubled sanctity 
of their quiet festival. 5 

"Expediency" and so-called ''patriotism" have been 
the means by which a backslidden church have ever per- 
verted the truth of God — not, What is right ? what is 
true ? but, What is the best policy ? — looking never to the 
eternal, but to the temporal. "Expediency" said that 
more heathen could then be won to the visible church, 
but it is certain that they were not won to Christ. "Ex- 
pediency" crucified the Son of God. 6 Truly it was not 
"undelightful;" it was rather delightful for the carnal 
heart to adopt a day, "inasmuch as it was their own high 
day at any rate. ' ' It was simply a calling of the heathen 
institution Christian, just as the old Roman Saturnalia is 
now called Christmastide. 

Rev. Mr. Chafie, in 1652, wrote a work called "The 
Seventh-day Sabbath," to justify first-day observance. 

4 " Ecclesiastical History," cent. 2, part 2, chap. 4, sec. 1-3. 
5 North British Review, vol. 18, p. 409. 6 John 11 149, 50. 



92 THE LORDS DAY 

After showing the general observance of Sunday by the 
heathen in the first centuries of the Christian era, he 
proceeds to give reasons which to him forbade the Chris- 
tians even attempting to keep another day: — 

i. Because of the contempt, scorn, and derision they thereby 
should be had in among all the gentiles with whom they lived. 
. .^ . How grievous would be their taunts and reproaches 
against the poor Christians living with them and under their 
power for their new set sacred day, had the Christians chosen 
any other than Sunday! ... 2. Most Christians then were 
either servants or the poorer sort of people; and the gentiles, 
most probably, would not give their servants liberty to cease 
from working on any other set day constantly, except on their 
Sunday. ... 3. Because, had they essayed such a change, it 
would have been but labor in vain; . . . they never could 
have brought it to pass. 7 

The above is a defense of policy, but not of principle. 

Dr. Peter Heylyn, a noted scholar of the Church of 
England, bears decisive testimony on this point. It is so 
explicit that we quote at length: — 

Take which you will, either of the Fathers or the moderns, and 
we shall find no Lord's day instituted by any apostolic mandate, 
no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of the week. 8 

Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord's day stands, 
on custom first, and voluntary consecration of it to reli- 
gious meetings; that custom countenanced by the authority of 
the church of God, which TACITLY approved the same; and 
FINALLY CONFIRMED and RATIFIED BY CHRISTIAN 
PRINCES throughout their empires. And as the day of rest 
from labors and restraint from business upon that day, [it] re- 
ceived its greatest strength from the sicpreme [civil] magistrate 
as long as he retained that power which to him belonged, as 
after from the canons and decrees of councils, the decretals of 
popes and orders of particular prelates, when the sole manag- 
ing ol ecclesiastical affairs was committed to them. 

I hope it was not so with the former Sabbath, which neither 
took original from custom, that people being not so forward to 
give God a day; nor required any countenance or authority 
from the kings of Israel to confirm or ratify it. The Lord had 
spake the word, that He would have one day in seven, pre- 
cisely the seventh day from the world's creation, to be a day of 
rpp. 61, 62. £ "History of the Sabbath," part 2, chap. 1, sec, 10, 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 93 

rest unto all His people; which said, there was no more to do 
but gladly submit and obey His pleasure. . . . But thus it 
was not done in our present business. The Lord's day had no 
such command that it should be sanctified, but was left plainly 
to God's people to pitch on this, or any other, for the public 
use. And being taken up amongst them, and made a day of 
meeting in the congregation for religious exercises; yet for three 
hundred years there was neither lazu to bind them to it, nor any 
rest from labor or from worldly business required upon it. 

And when it seemed good unto Christian princes, the nursing 
fathers of God's church, to lay restraints upon their people, yet 
at the first they were not general; but only thus, that certain men 
in certain places should lay aside their ordinary and daily 
works, to attend God's service in the church; those whose 
employments were most toilsome and most repugnant to the 
true nature of Sabbath, "being allowed to follow and pursue 
their labors because most necessary to the commonwealth. 

And in the following times, when as the prince and prel- 
ate, in their several places, endeavored to restrain them from 
that also, which formerly they had permitted, and interdicted 
almost all kind of bodily labor upon that day; it was not 
brought about without much struggling and opposition of the 
people, more tha?i a thousand years being past, after Christ's 
ascension, before the Lord's day had attained that state in 
which it now standeth. 9 

The "Christian princes'' to whom Heylyn refers were 
such rulers as Constantine, who made the first law, 
human or divine, for Sunday rest while he was yet a 
heathen and sun worshiper, in a. d. 321. That law 
reads as follows: — 

Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all 
trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who 
are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to 
the business of agriculture, because it often happens that no 
other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest, the 
critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities 
granted by heaven. Given the seventh day of March, Crispus 
and Constantine being consuls, each of them for the second 
time. 

On the next day, March 8, 321, this same "Christian" 
emperor issued a second decree every way worthy of the 

9 "Heylyn's History of the Sabbath," part 2, chap. 3, sec. 12. 



94 the lord's day 

Sunday rescript, to the effect that if any royal edifice 
should be struck by lightning, the haruspices, or sooth- 
sayers (who foretold events by consulting the entrails of 
beasts offered in sacrifice to the gods) were to be con- 
sulted to learn the meaning of the awful portent. 10 And 
yet Mosheim is forced to say that in consequence of this 
heathen law by Constantine, Sunday was "observed with 
greater solemnity than it had formerly been." n 
Morer, another first-day author, truly says: — 

The Lord's day [Sunday] had no command that it should be 
sanctified, but it was left to God' s people \o pitch on this or that 
day for the public worship. And being taken up and made a 
day of meeting for religious exercises, yet for three hundred 
years there was no law to bind them to it, and for want of such 
a law, the day was not wholly kept in abstaining from common 
business; nor did they any longer rest from their ordinary 
affairs (such was the necessity of those times) than during the 
divine service. 12 

And Sir William Domville declares: — 

Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday 
was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History 
does not furnish us with a single proof ox indication that it was 
at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Con- 
stantine in A. D. 32 1. 13 

And here is more recent testimony. The Christian at 
Work, an independent Presbyterian paper, said, in Jan- 
uary, 1884: — 

We hear less than we used to about the apostolic origin of the 
present Sunday observance, and for the reason that while the 
Sabbath and Sabbath rest are woven into the warp and woof of 
the Scripture, it is now seen, as it is admitted, that we must go 
to later than apostolic times for the establishment of Sunday 
observance. 

In its issue of Jan. 8, 1885, the same paper says: — 

10 "Justin's Ecclesiastical History," vol. i, sec. 31; "Milman's History of 
Christianity," book 3, chap. 1. 

11 "Ecclesiastical History," cent. 4, part 2, chap. 4, sec. 5. 

12 "Dialogues on the Lord's Day," p. 233. 

13 "Examination of the Six Texts," p. 291. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 95 

The selection of Sunday, thus changing the particular day 
designated in the fourth commandment, was brought about by 
the gradual concurrence of the early Christian church, and on 
this dasis, and none other, does the Christian sabbath, the first 
day of the week, rightly rest. 

We may well conclude these testimonies with the fol- 
lowing from the most distinguished of church historians, 
Neancler: — 

The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always 
only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of 
the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far 
from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the 
laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the 
second century 14 a false application of this kind had begun to 
take place; for men appear by that time to have considered 
laboring on Sunday as a sin. 15 

§4. HUMAN TESTIMONY FOR THE SABBATH. 

This is the testimony that Irenseus, one of the early 
Fathers, from a. d. 130 to 208, bears to the ten com- 
mandments : — 

For God at the first, indeed, warning them [the Jews] by 
means of natural precepts, which from the beginning He had 
implanted in mankind, that is, by means of the Decalogue 
(which, if anyone does not observe, he has no salvation), did 
then demand nothing more of them. 1 

Preparing man for this life, the Lord Himself did speak in 
His own person to all alike the words of the Decalogue; and, 
therefore, in like manner, do they remain permanently with us, 
receiving, by means of His advent in the flesh, extension and 
increase ', but not abrogation. 2 

Says Tertullian, who wrote about the year a. d. 200: — 

Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath; He kept the law 
thereof. . . . He furnished to this day divine safeguards 
— a course which His adversary would have pursued for some 
other days, to avoid honoring the Creator's Sabbath, and 
restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for it. 3 

14 See "Tertullian's Testimony," in a. d. 200, p. 90. 

15 "Neander's Church History," translated by H. J. Rose, p. 186, 

1 "Irenaeus against Heresies," book 4, chap. 15, sec. 1. 

2 Id., chap. 16, sec. 4. 

8 "Tertullian against Marcion," book 4, chap. 12. 



96 THE LORD'S DAY 

Archelaus, of Cascar, in Mesopotamia, declares that the 

Sabbath is not abolished by Christ: — 

Again, as to the assertion that the Sabbath has been abolished, 
we deny that He has abolished it plainly; for He was Himself 
also Lord of the Sabbath. 4 

Morer, in his "Dialogues on the Lord's Day," thus 

speaks of the Sabbath in early times : — 

The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sab- 
bath [seventh day], and spent the day in devotions and sermons. 
And it is not to be doubted that they derived this practice from 
the apostles themselves, as appears by several scriptures to that 
purpose. 5 

Here is Lyman Coleman's testimony: — 

The last day of the week was strictly kept in connection with 
that of the first day for a long time after the overthrow of the 
temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century the 
observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Chris- 
tian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminish- 
ing until it was wholly discontinued. 

No law or precept appears to have been given by Christ or 
the apostles, either for the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, or 
the institution of the Lord's day [Sunday], or the substitution of 
the first for the seventh day of the week. 

Thus Sunday, cherished at first as a harmless institu- 
tion in the church, as a bait to lure the pagan sun 
worshiper, at last crowded out the Sabbath of the Lord. 
First the keeping of the Sabbath was reproached as 
Judaism, then the apostate church made it a fast day, 
and finally the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord 
was denounced as heresy, and anathema pronounced on 
those who continued to observe it, by the Council of Lao- 
dicea. Says Wm. Prynne: — 

It is certain that Christ Himself, His apostles, and the primi- 
tive Christians, for some good space of time did constantly 
observe the seventh-day Sabbath; . . . and making mention 
of its . . . solemnization by the apostles and other Chris- 

4 "Disputation with Manes," sec. 42. 5 Page 189. 
6 "Ancient Christianity Exemplified," chap. 26, sec. 2. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 97 

tians, ... it being still solemnized by many Christians 
after the apostles' times, even till the Council of Laodicea [a. d. 
364], as ecclesiastical writers and the twenty-ninth canon of 
that council testify, which runs thus: "Because Christians ought 
not to Tudaize, and to rest in the Sabbath, but to work in that 
day (which many did refuse at that time to do). But preferring 
in honor the Lord's day (there being then a great controversy 
among Christians which of these two days . . should 

have precedency), if they desired to rest they should do this as 
Christians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize [that 
is, rest on the Sabbath], let them be accursed from Christ. . . 
The seventh-day Sabbath was . . . solemnized by 
Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean 
Council did in a manner quite abolish the observation of it. 
. . . The Council of Laodicea [a. d. 364] . . . first set- 
tled the observation of the Lord's day, and prohibited . . . 
the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath, under an anathema. 7 

It is thus that Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, about a. d. 
372, expostulates with his flock: — 

With what eyes can you behold the Lord's day, when you 
despise the Sabbath? Do you not perceive that they are sisters, 
and that in slighting the one you affront the other? 8 

It will be seen by the above that Sunday, which, in a. d. 
200, according to Tertullian, rested only on tradition and 
custom of an uncertain character, was now considered the 
equal, the sister, of the Sabbath. It was rather a cruel 
usurper, guilty of the foulest robbery. 

Heylyn, in speaking of the two days as held by the 

rapidly apostatizing church — the Sunday a feast day, the 

Sabbath a fast day — says : — 

In this difference it stood a long time together, till in the end 
the Roman Church obtained the cause, and Saturday became 
a fast almost through all the parts of the Western world. I say 
the Western world, and of that alone, the Eastern churches 
being so far from altering their ancient custom that in the sixth 
Council of Constantinople, A. d. 692, they did admonish those 
of Rome to forbear fasting on that day, upon pain of censure. 9 

7 "Dissertation on Lord's Day Sabbath," pp. 33, 34, 44, 1633. 
8 "Dialogue on the Lord's Day," p. 188; "Hessey's Bampton Lectures," pp. 
72, 304, 305- 

9 Heylyn's "History of the Sabbath," part 2, chap. 2, sec. 3. 



98 THE LORD'S DAY 

Heylyn also bears this testimony to the term "Sab- 
bath" :— 

The Saturday is called among them by no other name than 
that which formerly it had, the Sabbath. So that whenever, for 
a thousand years and upwards, we meet with Sabbatum in any 
writer of what name soever, it must be understood of no day 
but Saturday. 10 

Much more testimony might be given of like import 
to the foregoing. While defending a counterfeit institu- 
tion, candor has compelled many men in the various 
churches to admit the claims of the genuine, contrary to 
their own practice. Some of these admissions have been 
presented before you, reader. What do you think of 
them? But, after all, the Sabbath of the Lord does not 
need them; it has the testimony of Holy Writ and the 
example of holy men, down to the Man Christ Jesus, for 
4,000 years of the world's history. What more is 
needed? Sunday, as the great church historian Neander 
truly says, "was always only a human ordinance." It 
has only human testimony for support, and even those 
who would defend it admit that it has no divine command 
to support it, no apostolic example to confirm it. It is 
wholly a child of tradition; it is not of God's planting. 
"Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not 
planted, ' ' says Jesus, ' 'shall be rooted up. ' ' Which under 
this rule will stand, the Sabbath of Jehovah or "the wild 
solar holiday of all pagan times' ' ? 

There are two more facts 11 which we mention in proof 
of the Sabbath of the Lord: (1) That it has been 
observed by faithful men all through the Christian dis- 
pensation. Some of the sects that Rome denounced and 

10 Heylyn's "History of the Sabbath," part 2, chap. 2, sec. 12. 
11 For proof of the facts stated see "History of the Sabbath," by Andrews, 
chapters 21, 24, 26. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES, 99 

persecuted as heretics were Sabbath keepers. In the 
seventeenth century they were quite numerous in En- 
gland, and published several books, and some of them 
witnessed to the truth by enduring persecution even unto 
death. (2) In the fourth century, when the Church of 
Rome held the two days as "sisters," she sent mission- 
aries to Abyssinia. The Abyssinians were converted to 
the perverted Christianity which was brought them. 
They have observed the two days from that time to this, 
Sunday as a day of custom, the Sabbath because com- 
manded of God. So much in brief for the history of 
the Sabbath during the Christian dispensation. 



CHAPTER VI.-THE CLOSE OF THE CHRISTIAN 
DISPENSATION. 

gl.THE CONDITION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

It needs neither argument nor evidence to prove that 
the Christian churches stand to-day seemingly hopelessly 
divided upon great and vital questions, not only as 
regards the various denominations and sects, but schisms, 
parties, and strife exist among those of the same name. 
The inspiration of the Bible, the nature of man, the 
atonement, and the second coming of Christ, are doctrines 
upon which there is division everywhere. A greater 
part of the church is in politics, while a lesser number 
deplore it. But upon no question is there more diver- 
sity of sentiment than upon the question of the Sabbath 
day. 

Nearly all Christians observe more or less strictly 
the first day of the week as the Sabbath; some observe 
no day, while still others contend that the seventh 



IOO THE LORDS DAY 

day should be kept, as God appointed. Among those 
who hold the first day there is no union as to the 
ground of its observance. A part hold that the fourth 
commandment is the basis of Sunday observance, but 
the day was changed by Christ, yet they give no Scrip- 
ture proof; others hold that the law of the Sabbath was 
abolished; others, that only a seventh part of time is 
required; others, that the same day cannot be kept on a 
round W'Orld. It is not uncommon to find all these self- 
devouring positions, and others, too, taken by one first- 
day defender in the same discourse. In later years the 
greater number in the churches are demanding, contrary 
to the teaching of the gospel, a civil law to enforce Sun- 
day observance, and yet Sunday desecration increases. 
This is the condition of the religious world. Certainly a 
reform is demanded; a remedy is needed. This all good 
people will admit. Where shall we seek it ? Is there 
balm in Gilead ? 

§2. THE HEALING MESSAGE. 

God has given just such a message as this to heal the 
divisions, and to correct the confusion which exists. It 
is because of this that he calls the church Babylon; and 
the causes of her divisions are the errors, ' 'the wine of 
fornication,'' which" she has quaffed from Babylon the 
Great. 1 This message of healing is as follows: — 

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having 
the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the 
earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and peo- 
ple, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to 
Him; for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him 
that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of 
waters. 

"And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, 

1 See Rev. 14 : 3; 17 : 4-8. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. IOI 

is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of 
the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 

''And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 
If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his 
mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of 
the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mix- 
ture into the cup of His indignation; . . . and they have no 
rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and 
whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the pa- 
tience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments 
of God, and the faith of Jesus." 2 

Note (i) that the message is threefold: (a) A mes- 
sage bearing the positive truth of the everlasting Gospel 
of Christ, which ' l is the power of God unto salvation to 
everyone that believeth. " It is the blessed message of 
healing for Babylon. (&) A sad announcement immedi- 
ately follows, that Babylon would not be healed/ that she 
had chosen error, — the wine of fornication, the errors 
of paganism and union with the state, — instead of this 
Gospel of healing. (c) A most solemn, world-wide 
message of protest and warning to each individual soul 
against worshiping or obeying this union of church and 
state, symbolized by the beast and his image, and 
against receiving the mark of its power. 

(2) The message is emphatically a message of the last 
days. It announces that God's judgment "is come" 
and ushers in the second corning of Christ to reap the 
harvest of the earth, ripened by this world-wide threefold 
message. 

§3. HOW MUCH THE MESSAGE IMPLIES. 

The Gospel of Christ is the word of His salvation, 
which, when received, places Christ within the heart and 
life, "the hope of glory,'' and forms in the receiver a 

- Rev. 14 : 6-12. 3 Rom. 1:16. 4 See Jen 51 : 9. 
5 Compare with Acts 17:31 and 24:25, which places the judgment in thc 
future. G Rev. 14 : 14, compare with Matt. 13 : 39. 



102 THE LORDS DAY 

character like His own. This has been more fully dis- 
cussed in Part II, chapter 2. The first part of this mes- 
sage has a twofold burden: (a) "Fear God, and give 
glory to Him" in view of the judgment; and (U) "wor- 
ship Him that made heaven and earth." "The fear 
[reverence] of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a 
good understanding have all they that do His command- 
ments. M1 The proper fear of God leads to obedience, to 
the observance of His commandments. This is shown 
also by the following: — 

"And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is 
wisdom ; and to depart from evil is understanding. ' ' 

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, 
and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of 
man." 2 

Give glory to God; give unto Him "the glory due 
unto His name." The expression shows that the people 
to whom the words are addressed are giving glory to 
man, exalting man, the creature, instead of God, the 
Creator. God's name indicates His character, His good- 
ness, His glory. 3 To give the glory due to God is to 
confess Him to be right, to turn from transgression, and 
to yield to Him and to Him alone, acknowledging Him 
as He is, Creator, King, Redeemer/ But this means to 
"fear God, and keep His commandments," through the 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

" Worship Him" the great Creator. But the memo- 
rial of God's creative work is His Sabbath, the sign be- 
tween Him and His people that they may know that He 
is God, that He is the God who sanctifies them. 6 The 
highest worship is obedience. When Satan demanded of 

1 Ps. 111:10. 2 Job 28 : 28; Eccl. 12 : 13. 3 See Ex. 33 : 18, 19; 34 : 6, 7. 
4 See Isa. 42 : 5-8; Joshua 7 : 19; 1 Sam. 6 : 6; Jer. 13 : 16. 5 Ex. 20 : 8-11. 
6 See Eze. 20 ; 20, 12, and pages 13, 14. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. IO3 

Christ, * 'Worship me," Jesus replied, "Thou shalt wor- 
ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." 1 

He who serves does as his Lord commands: "Ye are 
My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." 8 To 
worship God, therefore, is to turn from all obedience to 
every opposing law of every earthly power, and to keep 
all of God's commandments. 

Those who do not do this choose instead the wine 
of Babylon's fornication. The only legitimate union for 
the church to hold is with Jesus Christ. To have or 
hold communion with another power is spiritual fornica- 
tion. 9 Babylon's fornication is departure from God 
and union with kings of the earth, with their idolatry, 
their errors, their power, and from these come, as from 
all union of church and state, persecution of the people 
of God. 

U- THE BEAST AND HIS MARK. 

This choosing of Babylon's fornication in preference to 
the Gospel of Christ leads to the worship of the beast 
instead of the worship of God, and to the acceptance of 
the mark of the power of the beast instead of the ac- 
ceptance of the mark of God's power, the Sabbath. 
The claim of the Papacy is the rulership of the world, 
and the mark of the authority of the Papacy [claimed by 
the Papacy], as we have abundantly shown, is the 
change which that power has made in God's law, namely, 
the Sunday sabbath. This false Lord' s day the Papacy 
enjoins upon the nations, and, as far as possible, secures 
its enforcement by civil law, for the spirit of apostasy is 
always compulsion of conscience when possible. This is 
what the Papacy is doing and will do, assisted by the 

7 Matt. 4 : 10. 8 Johni5:i4. 
9 Compare 2 Cor. 11:3; Rom. 7:4, 5; Jeremiah, chapters 2 and 3. 



104 THE LORDS DAY 

civil government in all the countries of earth, including 
this. As the Papacy claims Sunday as the mark of its 
authority to "command men under sin," she claims it as 
the mark of her authority in each country of the world. 
The Sunday becomes in this way the twofold mark of the 
Papacy, and of the state, with which the Papacy is united 
in fornication. Therefore, we will have and do have the 
Australian sabbath, the English sabbath, and the Amer- 
ican sabbath, every one of which is the one sabbath or 
pseudo Lord's day of the Papacy. And the word of 
God declares that the Papacy and an apostate Protes- 
tantism, united with the civil power, will force this first-day 
sabbath upon the world, and will make it a test both of 
allegiance to the Catholic Church and to the civil power. 
If a man does not profess to be a Christian and does not 
acknowledge the Sunday, he will be adjudged guilty of 
crime and finally of treason against the government; and 
if he does profess to be a Christian and does not observe 
the Sunday, he will be adjudged both heretic and traitor. 
And in harmony with this are the utterances of many 
professed Protestants, among which we offer the follow- 
ing:— 

This day [Sunday] is set apart for divine worship and prepara- 
tion for another life. It is the test of all religion. — Dr. W. IV. 
Everts, in Elgin (III.) Sunday Convention, November, 1887. 

The sabbath [Sunday] is the corner stone of Christ's king- 
dom. Let us recognize each recurring sabbath [Sunday] as the 
sign of God's covenant. By this sign the world largely judges the 
depth of our Christian character, and by this sign God judges 
us. — Mrs. J. G Bate ham, Sabbath Leaflet, No. 33. 

When the people, through their representative, legalize the 
first day of the week as a day of rest and of worship for those 
who choose so to observe it, it is the sign of the Christian 
nation. — From a sermon reported in the Christian Oracle, 
Jan. 12, 1893. 

For nothing were the noble men who planted true Christian- 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 105 

ity and an evangelical church in the wilderness, now constituting 
the United States, more distinguished than for their reverence 
for the sabbath [Sunday]. It was quite a prominent feature in 
their character — a sign between them and the heathen world 
around, and, to a large extent, it has continued to be a mark of 
American religion to the present day. — Rev. J. G. Lorimer, 
in Christian Treasury. 

In a large National Reform assembly at Saratoga 
Springs, N. Y., Rev. Herrick Johnson, D.D., of Chicago, 
presided. Rev. Joseph Smith, moderator of the Pres- 
byterian General Assembly (1894), presented the follow- 
ing resolution: — 

Resolved, That the fundamental principles of the National 
Reform Association . . . are true and scriptural principles, 
and that these principles must control our national life, or we 
shall perish. 

Resolved, That the sabbath [Sunday] is a sign between God 
and man, and its reverent observa?ice a mark of the nation 
whose God is Jehovah. 

The Michigan Christian Advocate of Sept. 3, 1892, 

says of this convention: — 

There were present large numbers of very prominent leaders 
from different parts of the United States. These representative 
men from so wide a range of territory were unanimous in their 
agreement on the principles and measures set forth in the reso 
lutions. 

Says the Advance (Congregationalist) of August 2, 

1894:— 

The sabbath [Sunday] serves the same purpose to-day as 
did the forbidden fruit i?i the Garden of Eden; a prohibition is 
laid upon it, that men may not use it for their own pleasure. 
This prohibition is to test them and train them. It is designed 
continually to teach them reverence for law. That man is an 
anarchist at heart who deliberately flaunts at the sacredness of 
the Sabbath, or sneers at any other distinct revelation of the laze 
of God. 

But in all these references to the sabbath, the Sabbath 
of the Lord is not meant, but the pseudo sabbath which 
the man of sin has put in the place of the Sabbath of the 



106 THE LORD'S DAY 

Lord, even as he has put himself in the place of the 
Author of the Sabbath. The widespread efforts of both 
Catholics and Protestants to secure "effective" Sunday 
laws, not only in this country, but the world, is the be- 
ginning of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Revelation 13. 

I 5. THE SEAL OF GOD. 

Opposed to the work of the beast and his image in the 
demand for worship and the enforcement of the mark of 
the beast, is God's great message of Sabbath reform, a 
part of which we have already considered. This work 
of God in the earth is set forth in the sealing of the 
servants of God, as found in Rev. 7:1-3 and Isa. 
8: 16, 17:— 

"And after these things I saw four angels standing on the 
four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, 
that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor 
on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, 
having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud 
voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth 
and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the 
trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their fore- 
heads." 

' ' Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. 
And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth His face from the 
house of Jacob, and I will look for Him." 1 

Note the following: (1) Universal strife and war on earth 
(represented by the four winds) will not come till the serv- 
ants of God are sealed; then will come the great battle of 
the day of God. (2) By examination of the context of 
the two passages it will be seen that both have reference 
to the Christian dispensation, and the work is among the 
disciples of Christ, near the time of His second coming, 
when His people are waiting for Him. 2 (3) They are 

1 See also Eze. 9 : 1-6. 
-Compare Isa, 8 ; 16, 17 with Heb. 9 : 28; 1 Thess. 1 : 10; Isa. 25 : 9, 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. I.07 

sealed with the seal of the living God, in contradis- 
tinction to false gods. (4) A seal is that which stamps 
an article as genuine, which gives validity to, which 
authenticates. God's seal would stamp them as God's 
servants. It was anciently used by kings and those 
in authority. 3 (5) It is always used in connection with 
law. 4 (6) It must of necessity show three things, — the 
name, the authority, and the realm or territory indi- 
cating right of authority of the lawgiver, thus: Victoria, 
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. The name is Vic- 
toria; the authority, queen; the territory, Great Britain 
and Ireland. God' slaw, the only document He has ever 
spoken or written to men, is found in Ex. 20: 1-17, in 
ten different precepts. In five of these precepts, the 
first, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, not one of 
the necessary features of the seal are given. In the 
second, third, and fifth only the name and authority is 
given, "Jehovah thy God." But in the fourth com- 
mandment we have every characteristic of the seal, — the 
name, "Jehovah;" the authority, "thy God;" the extent 
of authority and right to command, ' k the Creator of the 
heavens and the eartli ' : — 

' ' Remember the Sabbath da)', to keep it holy. Six days shalt 
thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath 
of Jehovah thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, . . . 
for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, . . . 
and rested the seventh day; wherefore Jehovah blessed the 
Sabbath day, and hallowed it." 

A law without its seal is void. In no other part of 
God's law, written with His own hand, are the character- 
istics of a seal given; but in the fourth, or Sabbath, com- 
mandment, are all these characteristics. God there sub- 

:i See 1 Kings 21 : 8; Esther 8 ; 8, 4 See texts above referred to. 



108 THE LORD'S DAY 

scribed Himself and authenticated His law as the only 
genuine code of morals; and He will not give His glory 
to another. The Sabbath is, therefore, the seal of God's 
law. 

16. DISTINGUISHED BY CREATIVE POWER. 

Moreover, creative power, of which the Sabbath is a 
memorial, is God's distinguishing characteristic, that 
which shows Him to be the true and living God in con- 
tradistinction to all false gods. Among the many texts 
which show this, take the following: — 

" For all the gods of the nations are idols; but the Lord made 
the heavens." 6 

" But the Lord is the true God, He is the living God, and an 
everlasting King. . . . The gods that have not made the 
heavens and the earth, even they shall perish. . . . He [Je- 
hovah] hath made the earth by His power, He hath established 
the world by His wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by 
His discretion." 7 

"Ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, 
which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that 
are therein." 8 

"God that made the world and all things therein, . . . 
He is Lord of heaven and earth/' 9 

"Worship Him that made heaven, and earth." 10 

I 7. THE SABBATH HIS MEMORIAL. 

As God's creative power is that which distinguishes 
Him from all false gods, so has He given us a perpetual 
memorial, the observance of which will distinguish His 
servants from the servants of every opposing power. 
The psalmist says:- — 

"He hath made His wonderful works [of power, righteous- 
ness, and mercy, see context] to be remembered." 1 [Young 
translates, "A memorial hath He made."] 

Again the psalmist couples God's name with His memo- 

&Isa.42:8, *> Ps. 96 : 5. "Jer. 10 : 10-12. 8 AetS-.i/j.: 15, ^Acts 17:24, 

J° Rev, 14:7. T Ps, in 14. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. I09 

rial, and tells us that they are perpetual in their continu- 
ance: — 

"Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever; and thy memorial, 
O Lord, throughout all generations." - 

This memorial, as has been clearly shown, is the Sab- 
bath as commanded by God, the memorial of His crea- 
tive and redeeming power, a sign between Him and His 
people that He is the true and only God, the seal of His 
law. And this memorial will be especially dear to the 
last generation of Christians who know His creative power 
in regenerated hearts. In speaking of the great day of 
God, when His children who keep the truth shall enter 
the eternal gates, the prophet thus speaks for the people 
who are waiting for His coming: — 

" Yea, in the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited 
for Thee; to Thy name and to Thy memorial is the desire of 
our soul." 3 

They have heeded God's great reform message; they 

fear and give glory to Him, and, hence, find delight in 

His worship, and in His day, even as they have found 

deliverance in His name. 

IS. A SABBATH BLESSING. 

A reform message is found on the Sabbath in Isa. 

56:1-7:— 

"Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice; for 
My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be 
revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of 
man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from pollut- 
ing it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let 
the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, 
speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from His 
people; neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. 
For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep My Sab- 
baths, and choose the things that please Me, and take hold of 
My covenant: Even unto them will I give in Mine house and 

2 Ps. 135:13. 3 Isa. 26:8, R. V. 



1IO THE LORDS DAY 

within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of 
daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not 
be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves 
to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, 
to be His servants, everyone that keepeth the Sabbath from 
polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant; even them will I 
bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house 
of prayer. ' ; 

Let the reader note the following points: (i) The work 
here predicted is one that is manifest to the world when 
Christ's second coming is near, for it is at that time that 
the salvation, or redemption, of His people will be accom- 
plished. This is shown by Luke 21:28 and Isa. 25:9. 
This is also the time when God's righteousness in the 
fullness of His terrible glory will be revealed, and His 
people rewarded. l (2) The covenant here referred to is 
the new or everlasting 2 covenant, through which comes 
the everlasting name. (3) This scripture presents to us 
just what character true Sabbath keepers will bear. They 
are those who "join themselves to the Lord, to serve 
Him, and to love the name [or character] of the Lord, to 
be His servants, ' ' these only can ' ' keep the Sabbath 
from polluting it," — those in whom Christ, the Lord of 
the Sabbath, dwells. (4) The blessing is especially 
addressed to the outcasts of earth and of the Jewish 
nation, the eunuchs and the strangers, or gentiles. (5) 
TKe blessing of God is pronounced upon those who will 
heed His message, take hold upon Christ's power 
through His covenant, and keep His Sabbath from pol- 
luting it. Reader, will you share this double blessing, — 
the blessing of God upon the Sabbath, and the bless- 
ing upon the man who keeps it ? 

1 Ps. 50 : 3-6; Rev. 22 ; 12. 2 Compare with Isa. 55 : 3-5 and Heb. 13 : 20, 21. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. til 

ig. TAKE THY FOOT FROM THE SABBATH. 

In Isaiah 58 and 59 is part of another prophecy of the 
last days. The fifty-ninth chapter presents a time of 
almost unparalleled wickedness among the people of God 
and the great of earth who ' ' know their iniquities. ' ' l 
The lack of judgment and justice and truth, the keeping 
up of oppression and fraud and wickedness, is a similar 
state of things to what is described as to occur in the last 
days, in 2 Tim. 3: 1-5. To meet this, the Spirit of Christ 
holds up the standard of truth ; and the next event is the 
coming of Christ, to bring reward to His people and 
" recompense to His enemies." 2 In chapter 58 a part 
of God's last message of reform is given, the rejection of 
which leads to the wickedness described in the next chap- 
ter. While this message demands most thorough change 
of heart and life, it makes especially prominent the Sab- 
bath. The sins condemned are the sins of the people of 
God, and the promises are to those who will turn from 
their sins. The chapter opens thus: — 

" Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and 
show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob 
their sins." 

Then, after showing that these sins are among those 
who take delight in meeting together and calling upon 
God, He pronounces great blessings upon those who will 
break every yoke of bondage and let the oppressed go 
free. Out of those who are thus warned He declares 
that a class will arise who will effect a thorough work of 
reform respecting the Sabbath. He says in verses 12-14: 

"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste 
places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations ; 
and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breack,The restorer 

1 Isa. 59:12. 2isa. 59: 16-20. 



112 THE LORD'S DAY 

of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sab- 
bath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the 
Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt 
honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own 
pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight 
thyself in the Lord" [and enjoy all God's promised blessings], 
" for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

How appropriate are these figures to the present state 
of things as regards the Sabbath ! God' s law has been 
laid waste; the very foundation of righteousness, the sign 
between God and His people, has been broken down; a 
breach has been made by "the man of sin" in God's 
law; the paths of His commandments have been covered 
with the rubbish of tradition and overgrown with the 
noxious weeds of error; men's feet are upon the Sabbath 
of the Lord; they seek their pleasure on His holy day, 
making it the busiest day of the week, and have put in 
its place the false sabbath of fornication. Many have 
been doing this unwittingly. God does not condemn 
unjustly, but according to the light that shines upon our 
pathway. The days of the papal domination are over. 
The wickedness of the mystery of iniquity, which would 
place the man of sin in the place of God, and his mark in 
the place of God' s seal, has been made manifest, that the 
world and the church may not again be deceived. And 
now, before Christ comes, He sends forth His message of 
light and healing to bind up the divisions of His people, 
to correct their ways, and to bring them back to \ \ the 
old paths, where is the good way," in which He Himself 
has walked before them and would gladly walk with 
them. But, sad to say, some " will not walk therein," * 
but reject God's law. Yet there are others who will 
yield to His truth and justify His ways. 

3 See Jer. 6 : 16-19; Isa. 30 : 8-1 1, margin. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. IIJ 

I 10. THE TWO CLASSES. 

The same sun and rain which develop the wheat, de- 
velop also the tares. The truth of God which calls out, 
sanctifies, and unites a people to do His will, also de- 
velops through its rejection a class that are opposed to 
the will of God. It has ever been thus; it is so in this 
case. For a half century the special message of Sabbath 
reform, which has been briefly outlined in these pages, 
has added its strength to the message borne for centuries 
by a few faithful Sabbath keepers, the seventh-day Bap- 
tists. It began small and in poverty. For years its 
adherents were only a little flock. They do not number 
many thousands even now, but the message of life, 
"Fear God, and give glory to Him," "and worship Him 
that made heaven, and earth, ' ' has been given, and is being 
given, to the world. It is God's "fullness of time" that 
it shall go, and it cannot be stayed. It has gone even 
beyond those who bear it, carried by the word and Spirit 
of God to many hearts who have never seen a human 
representative of the great truth. It is developing a 
class of people, as the prophecy declared it would, of 
whom it is said, " Here is the patience of the saints; 
here are they that keep the commandments of God, and 
the faith of Jesus." 1 This could not be said of those 
who broke the sixth commandment. Can it be said of 
those who break the fourth ? What right has man to 
discriminate where God has not? Shall we fall under 
His condemnation by being "partial in the law"? 2 
Keeping God's commandments is keeping them all, in 
every point, and this through the faith of Jesus. 

But this arouses the wrath of the enemy. The dragon 

1 Rev. 14 : 12. - Mai. 2 : 9. 



114 THE LORDS DAY 

(the devil) is wroth with the remnant church, and makes 
war with them because they ' ' keep the commandments 
of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." 3 This 
wrath is now manifest in the world-wide effort to secure 
civil laws with * 'adequate penalties' ' to enforce Sunday 
observance. But as the religious Sunday originally 
sprang from sun worship, and as sun worship originated 
in the deceptions of Satan, so Sunday when fully de- 
veloped will manifest in it the spirit of Satan. This is 
seen in Sunday laws. Their power is compulsion, their 
motto, force, even though good men may be in the move- 
ment. Compulsion has ever made hypocrites and per- 
secuted the saints of God, but has never made Christians; 
and, so far as its operations have thus far gone in this 
country, their evil effects have been felt in Arkansas, 
Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia, Maryland, and Massa- 
chusetts, by those who are confessedly (by the authorities) 
good citizens, and whose only crime is in exercising their 
God-given right of keeping the commandments of God 
as written in His word; and the instigators of this per- 
secution have been professed disciples of Him who said: 
" If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge 
him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save 
the world; 4 "Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you, do ye even so teo them." 5 The power of the 
fully developed Sunday sabbath is compulsion ; its motive 
is the same as that of the man of sin, hatred of God and 
exaltation of self. This is not always seen. Many have 
observed Sunday from love to God, believing that they 
were obeying God's word. But when Sunday is chosen 
contrary to known Bible evidence, the spirit of the institu- 

3 Rev. 12:17. 4 Johni2:47. & Matt. 7:12. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 115 

tion is soon developed. If power be had, persecution is 
sure to follow ; and the whole tenor and spirit of the last-day 
Sunday movement is in this line of self-exaltation, giving 
glory to men, compelling by force, persecuting opposers. 
It must be thus. It is the very spirit of the institution and 
its author. Poison is as deadly administered by a priest 
as by a pirate. Sun worship and the Papacy, the author 
and foster mother of Sunday, have blighted and ruined 
the nations of the past; the poison of the fatal error is 
as deadly to-day, though administered by the hand of 
professed Protestantism. 

On the other hand, the Sabbath of the Lord has no 
power but that of the Gospel, no door to the heart but 
that of love. Hatred may rest on any day, but only love 
for God, begotten of Christ Jesus through the Gospel, 
keeps the Sabbath. The same love for God rejects the 
rival Sabbath, the mark of the beast, and warns others 
against it. Knowing ' k the terror of .the Lord ' ' pro- 
nounced upon those who yield allegiance to the beast or 
his image and receive its mark, nominally or really, it 
persuades men 6 to turn from the error, and forsake 
the ranks of apostasy, rally under the banner of truth, 
follow in the footsteps of Christ, and by the Spirit of God 
be sealed with the seal of His law, the mark of His 
power as Creator and Redeemer. Love pleads; it cannot 
compel save by love. And love, the love of Christ, 
pleads with you, reader, in the language of the word of 
God, to "turn away thy foot from the Sabbath," to 
follow in the footsteps of the Master. 

2 Cor. 5:11. 



Il6 THE LORD'S DAY 

§11. THE SAD RESULT. 

The sad result, the penalty, the consequence to those 
who reject the message by which the Lord would dissi- 
pate the errors in the church and heal her divisions, is 
foretold in the message itself in Rev. 14:9-12. The 
carrying out of this is predicted, in the world-wide out- 
pouring of the seven last plagues, in Revelation 1 6. Some 
of these plagues are poured out locally upon nations which 
have rejected various degrees of light. But altogether 
they involve the whole earth, all of Babylon the Great, 
all of the worshipers of the beast and his image, both of 
which enforce the mark of the beast, the legalized Sun- 
day. The beast and his image are world wide in their 
power and influence, and bring all nations under their 
deceptions and bondage. They have rejected the right- 
eousness and life of Christ in rejecting His truth, and 
have chosen in its stead popular error backed by the 
power of hypocritical apostate governments, the end of 
which is death. God will not give His glory to another, 
and therefore cannot bless that which opposes His truth, 
His means of sanctifying men. 1 The last generation is 
not simply continuing in error ignorant and unwarned, 
but they are choosing there to remain, in the face of the 
mighty truths of God's word, backed by the hard, cold 
facts of history. The word of God has predicted over 
and over again the Papacy in its rise, character, work, 
and continuance. The history of the Dark Ages shows 
how faithfully to the inspired portrayal the Papacy has 
performed its work. It has blasphemed God, put His 
saints to death, changed God's law in the Christian world 
in that very feature which keeps before men the living 

ijohn 17: 17. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 117 

God. Its wickedness was so great that the nations re- 
volted, and the persecuting power of the Papacy was 
taken away. But now, with still bolder assumption, that 
power is again demanding the scepter of the world, yet 
claiming to be the same; and, strange to say, Protestants 
are repudiating the principles of Protestantism, which 
made them what they are, have erected other standards 
of the word of God, and are demanding the ' ' intrusion 
of the civil magistrate" to enforce a papal institution 
which makes void the law of God. Thus they reject not 
only God's word, but the principles which gave Protestants 
existence. For Rome cannot change; she has not 
changed. God's word declares she will not, and Rome 
herself affirms it, and yet blind Protestantism, drunken 
with the wine of her fornication, goes back to her embrace, 
and fosters and promotes her institutions by methods dis- 
tinctly Roman. Verily their ' 'glory is in their shame. ' ' 
All who thus do, will revel for a little time in her day- 
dream of luxury and power, and then perish in her cor- 
ruption." Out of her communion and sins God is calling 
His people, lest they perish with her. 3 

I 12. THE GLORIOUS OUTCOME. 

But there is a better side to the great crisis and struggle. 
God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. His 
pleasure is that the wicked shall live, 1 and therefore 
He offers life to all, in His blessed law, through Christ. 
There are those who will yield to Him, who will brave 
the world's scorn and hate and persecution because they 
believe God's word and know His way is right. God's 
word reveals the struggle through which they pass, the 
suffering and affliction they endure, and the glorious en- 

2 Rev. 18:9-18. 3 Rev. 18:1-8. 1 Eze. 33:11. 



Il8 THE LORD'S DAY 

trance beyond the short, sharp struggle between eternal 
truth and usurping error. The character and victory of 
His people are thus set forth in the following scriptures: — 

''And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and 
with Him a hundred forty and four thousand, having His Fa- 
ther's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from 
heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great 
thunder; and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their 
harps; and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, 
and before the four beasts, and the elders; and no man could 
learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, 
which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which 
were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are 
they which follow the Lamb withersoever He goeth. These 
were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God 
and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile; for 
they are without fault before the throne of God." 2 

"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and 
them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his 
image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, 
stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they 
sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of 
the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord 
God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of 
saints. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy 
name? for Thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and 
worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest." 3 

Upon the above scriptures it is well to note the follow- 
ing points: — 

i. The company here brought to notice is evidently 
the same as that of Rev. 7: 1-4. The latter have the 
seal of the living God in their foreheads; the former have 
the Father's name. But God's name, as has been shown, 
is connected with His seal, His memorial, which points out 
the true God. 4 But the seal of His law and the memo- 
rial of His works, both of creation and redemption, is His 
Sabbath. This company is, therefore, a company of 
Sabbath keepers. 

2 Rev. 14 : 1-5. 3 Rev. 15 : 2-4. 4 Ps. 135 : 13; Eze. 20 : 12, 20. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 119 

2. They are in heaven before the throne. 3 They are 
those redeemed from the earth at the second coming of 
Christ, for it is said they are redeemed ' f from the earth, ' ' 
and "from among men," in contradistinction to those 
redeemed "from the grave." 6 But the only generation 
thus redeemed is the last generation of the righteous, 
when Christ comes. 7 The conclusion is, therefore, that 
this company is composed of the Sabbath-keeping Chris- 
tians developed by the great threefold message, those 
who " keep the commandments of God, and the faith of 

esus. 

3. They sing a new song, which none others can learn, 
because it expresses an experience through which none 
others have passed, — a conflict with all the powers of 
earth and hell 

4. They have not committed fornication with the corrupt 
churches of earth, for " they are virgins," and in them is 
developed through Christ all the righteousness of the law, 
for " they are without fault before the throne of God." 

5. They know God's power in creation, for it has been 
manifest in their mighty deliverance over the beast and 
his image and over the mark and name of the beast. 
This victory is won through the mighty power of God 
and the glory of His name, as manifest in Jesus Christ, 
both Creator and Redeemer. 

In this eternal city of God begins the endless reign of 
the saints of God. 9 At the end of the thousand years 
will be fulfilled God's promise by His prophets, " Behold, 
I create new heavens and a new earth. ' ' 10 From out of the 
purified elements of the old world the Creator will again 

5 Rev. 14 : 3. 6 Hosea 13 : 14; Phil. 2 : 10, n, et al. 
7 1 Thess. 4 : 16, 17; 1 Cor. 15 : 51-54. 8 Rev. 14 : 12. 9 Dan. 7 : 27; Matt. 25 : 34. 

10 Isa. 65 : 17. 



IzO THE LORDS DAY 

speak a sinless and perfect creation. 11 The capital city ot 
this renewed earth will be the city of God, the New 
Jerusalem. 12 Upon this new earth, in the never-ending 
felicity of perfect sinlessness, shall the redeemed and 
righteous forever dwell. From month to month shall 
they come from all parts of the earth to pluck the fruit of 
life's fair tree, 18 delighting themselves in the bounties and 
blessings of spiritual yet not unsubstantial existence. 
Here also from week to week — "from one Sabbath to 
another" — -shall they enjoy w T hat is even greater than 
what may be called physical blessings, but which are 
themselves spiritual, the blessing of uniting with all the 
glorified inhabitants of a glorified earth in the pure and 
holy worship of God, u not upon a day in which the arch- 
enemy of God through tradition seeks to make void the 
law r of God, and dethrone the Majesty of heaven, but 
upon the Sabbath of the Lord of hosts, upon the only 
Lord's day of Holy Writ, the day that shall speak to all 
most eloquently not only of a sometime creation, but of 
an eternal redemption and a glorious, ever-present re- 
creation, amid the omnific glories of which God's people, 
oppressed no more, shall ever dw r ell. Reader, do you 
not wish to join in that triumph ? Then will vou not ? 

I 13. SUMMARY. 

Reader, the argument, the evidence, the eternal truth 
of God's word, is before you. Have not the following 
propositions been clearly proved by the irrefragable truths 
of the word of God: — 

1. The seventh-day Sabbath was instituted for man 
\n Eden, at the beginning of the Patriarchal dispensation. 

11 See 2 Peter 3; Rev. 21 : 27. 12 Revelation 21 and 2? 
13 Isa. 66 : 22; Rev. 22 : i 3 2. 14 Isa. 66 : 22, 23. 



THE TEST OF THE AGES. 121 

2. A reform among God's people took place in the 
closing years of that dispensation in which the Sabbath 
was the test of allegiance to God. 

3. The seventh day was reaffirmed in the beginning 
of the Levitical dispensation by the voice of God speak- 
ing it from heaven, writing it on tables of stone, and 
making it known both as a memorial of creation and a 
sign of redemption. 

4. A reform took place upon the Sabbath in the close 
of the Levitical dispensation, in which our Lord restored 
it to its primitive beauty, and interpreted it according 
to the law of the Sabbath. Those who held to the Jewish 
^'aditions respecting the day rejected Christ. 

5. The Sabbath was reaffirmed in the beginning of 
the Christian dispensation by the example and teaching 
of both Christ and His apostles, and by the death of the 
Son of God upon the cross. 

6. A reform is predicted to take place in the closing 
days of this dispensation, in which the Sabbath is made 
a test of obedience to God's word. This is acknowl- 
edged by its enemies, who make the rival Sabbath — the 
Sunday — a test. This prophecy is now being rapidly 
fulfilled, and multitudes are in the valley of decision. 

7. Finally, in that eternal home of God's people, the 
new heavens and new earth, the Sabbath, the memorial of 
the mighty power, the sign of the wondrous love, of our 
Creator and Redeemer, will be observed by the servants 
of God forever. 

I 14. BLESSED BOON OF GOD. 

Blessed Sabbath of God! Thou hast survived the 
wreck of nations, the turmoil of time, and the storms of 
ages. Thou didst come from thy Creator fair and pure, 




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THE TEST OF THE AGES. 1 23 

not knowing the stain of sin. The glories and beauties 
of a sinless Eden were about thee. No noisy strife, no 
din of labor, no oath profane, no word of hate, broke 
upon the sacred stillness at thy birth in the Paradise of 
God. Thou wast consecrated by the rest and blessing 
of thine Author, the happy songs of sinless beings, the 
glad praise of a sinless world. Thou hast seen the re- 
bellion of the race, the curse of sin, the rise and fall of 
mighty nations, the suffering of thy Maker. Thou hast 
suffered under the hand of the enemy, been trodden 
underfoot, and, like thy divine Lord, wounded in the 
house of thy friends, crucified between two thieves, 
Mohammedan sixth day and papal Sunday. But thou 
shalt come forth again clad in eternal beauty. The 
coronet of immortality will be placed upon thy brow. 
Thou shalt dwell forevermore in the earth made new, in 
die Paradise of thy God restored. Thou hast seen Eden 
lost; thou shalt see it redeemed from the curse. 

Be thou still our friend. Speak to us of the love and 
power of God the Creator, of God the Redeemer. Tell 
us of the love of God in giving man his sinless home. 
Cheer us with the promise of glorious rest to tired frame 
and fevered brain by and by, when weary toil will be 
over; when the earth shall be filled with the glory of the 
Lord as the waters cover the sea; when our God shall 
dwell with His people; when we shall " see the King in 
Mis beauty," and shall share in His joy. And may the 
Lord of the Sabbath help us to use thy sacred moments 
so well, to so remember thee at all times, that we shall 
never forget Him whose thou art; that our calling and 
election shall be made sure to the Eden of God, where 
1 ' from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh ' ' come up 
to worship the Lord of hosts. Even so, amen. 



►>%%/%4Mfe^*^*%%^ %^%%^^^%^M^%^% 




EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS. 

D. T. Jones, Guadalajara, Mexico, 

Superintendent Medical Mission. 
S. N. Haskell, South Africa, 

Vice President International Tract Society. 
H. P. Kolser, Basel, Switzerland, 

Snpt. Gen. Conf. District No. 8. 
J. H. Durland, Battle Creek, Mich., 

Supt. Gen. Conf. District No. 4. 
F. M. Wilcox, Battle Creek, Mich., 

Secretary Board of Foreign Missions. 
A. O. Tait, Battle Creek, Mich., 

Secretary International Tract Society. 



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HISTORY of the SABBATH 

AND 

THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK 
From Creation Down to the Present Time 



by the late JOHN NEVINS ANDREWS 



Formerly Missionary at Bale, Switzerland, Editor of "Les Signes des 
Temps" and Numerous Religious Works 



The leading- subject of the day is The Sabbath Question. From 
the pulpit and the press, in social circles and. in legislative halls, the 
great demand of the hour is that the Sabbath be more strictly observed. 
To assist the intellectual-minded, of our land to have correct views of 
this important question, a book has been prepared, which thoroughly 
discusses the Sabbatic Institution in its various phases. This volume 

IS A MINE OF INFORMATION 

on the Sabbath question. It carefully treats the matter from a Biblical 
and Historical standpoint. All the passages of Scripture, in both the 
Old and. the New Testaments, which have any bearing on the subject 
are carefull}' and critically examined. The various steps by which the 
change from the Seventh Day to the First Day was made, and the iina 
exaltation of the Lord's Sabbath, are to be given in detail. 

THE COMPLETE TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS, 

immediately following the time of the Apostles, in reference to the Sab- 
bath and First Day, is presented, and the comparative merits of the two 
days are clearly shown. 

A COPIOUS INDEX 

enables the reader to readily find any passage of Scripture or statement 
of any historian. This great work is the result of ten years' hard labor 
and historical research. The volume contains 548 pages, is printed in 
large type on good paper, and is well bound. 
PRICKS 

Cloth - = - " = a » $2 00 

Bound in paper, complete in three parts, per set * 1 00 

Address 

PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO. 

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Kansas City, Mo. New York City, N. Y, 



"The Abiding Sabbath" 

AND THE 

"LORD'S DAY." 

In the pages of this pamphlet, the author reviews 
two contributions to the defense of Sunday, popularly 
called the "Ivord y s Day." The first of these essays was 
written by Rev. George Elliott, and took the $500 "Fletcher 
Prise, " offered by the trustees oi Dartmouth College for the 
best essay on the "Perpetual Obligation of the Iyord's Day." 

The other essay was written by A. E. Waffle, M. A., 
and was awarded a $1,000 prize by the Committee of Pub- 
lication of the American Sunday School Union. 

We state thus definitely the source of the essays re- 
viewed, that all may see their importance. Certainly if 
there was any argument in favor of Sunday, we should 
expect to find it in these prize essays, In his review, the 
author takes up their arguments and assertions, and shows 
very plainly that several times they have proved what they 
did not want to prove at all. 

This review will be read with interest and profit by all, 
and those who have friends interested in the Sabbath ques- 
tion should see tha.t one of these pamphlets is placed in their 
hands. Paper covers, 176 pages, Price 20 Cents, 

Address orders to 

PACIFIC PRESS PUBLISHING CO. 

OAKLAND, CAL. 

Kansas City, Mo. New York City, N. ¥ 



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PROPHETIC LIGHTS. By E. J. Waggoner. As its title in- 
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of ihe Old and New Testaments, showing the exact ful- 
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Tyre, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome ; also of 
the prophecies concerning the first advent of Christ, 
which proves the inspiration of the Bible, and gives as- 
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THE JUDGHENT. By the late J. N. Andrews. The events 
\ of the judgment and their order. Bible Students' Library, 
\ No. 55. 136 pages, paper covers, 15c. 

THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. By H. A. St. John. A 
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